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SENATE DOCUMENT NO. 447 :: SIXTY-FIRST CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION 






: 

! 


HOW WE BUILT THE 
UNION PACIFIC 
RAILWAY 

And Other Railway Papers 
and Addresses 


Major-General GRENVILLE M. DODGE 

Chief Engineer Union Pacific Railway 
1866-1870 




PRESENTED BY MR. HALE 


March 22, 1910.—Ordered to be printed, with illustrations 


WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

1910 



















61 st Congress \ 
2d Session j 


SENATE 


f Document 
l No. 447 


HOW WE BUILT THE 
UNION PACIFIC RAILWAY 

t i 

And Other Railway Papers 
and Addresses 


BY 

Major-General GRENVILLE M. DODGE 

Chief Engineer Union Pacific Railway 
1866-1870 



PRESENTED BY MR. HALE 


March 22, 1910. —Ordered to be printed, with illustrations 


WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

1910 




















APR 23 1910 


















• v 


• * 


































5 * 

\ 

cr 

UJ 

0 ) 


CONTENTS. 


Page. 

How we built the Union Pacific Railway. 5 

Address at the Omaha Centennial. 41 

The Building of the Union Pacific Railroad and Its Relation to Council Bluffs 

and Western Iowa... 47 

Fortieth Anniversary of Driving of the Last Spike... 55 

What I Know of Harriman. 61 

A Tribute to General Dodge. 65 

Speech of G. M. Dodge in Congress, March 25, 1868, on the Union Pacific 

Railroad..^... 69 

The Civil Engineer in an Early Day and in the Civil War. 77 

Address at Banquet of Commercial Club, Omaha. 101 

Address at unveiling of monument to Marshall F. Hurd. 107 

Address on “The Pioneers and Development of the West”. 113 

Letter to the Iowa Railway Club. 119 

Description of Norwich University. 123 

Norwich University in the Civil War. 125 

Address Before the Vermont Society of New York. 131 


3 


















ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Faces page. 

Major-General G. M. Dodge. 5 

Dale Creek Bridge. 14 

General Dodge and Party of Exploration. 20 

General Grant and Party Visit General Dodge. 25 

Temporary Trestle, Promontory, Utah. 27 

S. B. Reed. 30 

General J. S. Casement. 31 

Six Passenger Trains Snowed In.. 38 

City of Rocks. 41 

Twin Monks. 47 

Joining of Tracks. 55 

The Locomotives Touched Noses. 57 

Cedar Pass, Utah. 58 

Monument Point, Great Salt Lake. 61 

Eagle Nest, Utah. 65 

Laramie Peak, Wyoming. 67 

Laramie River Canyon, Wyoming.. 69 

Thos. B. Morris and Party. 77 

Tunnel No. 3, Weber Canyon. 82 

Divide of the Continent. 89 

Camp on Snake River Range. 90 

Humboldt Wells. 96 

Chief Engineer’s Office, Omaha, 1866-1870. 101 

Entrance to North Platte Canyon. 107 

Thousand Mile Tree, Weber Canyon, Utah. . 109 

Julesburg Stage Station, Wyoming, 1867 . 113 

Union Pacific Railway Crossing, Green River, Utah. 119 

General Dodge’s Camp, Blackfoot Creek, Utah. 123 

Bear River Bridge, Utah.. _ . 125 

Cottonwood Grove, Weber Canyon, Utah. 131 


4 




















































































* 








MAJOR-GENERAL G. M. DODGE. 

C hief Engineer Union Pacific Railway, 1860-1870, 









HOW WE BUILT THE UNION PACIFIC RAILWAY. 


In 1836 the first public meeting to consider the project of a Pacific 
railway was called by John Plumbe, a civil engineer of Dubuque, 
Iowa. Interest in a Pacific railway increased from this time. The 
explorations of Fremont in 1842 and 1846 brought the attention of 
Congress, and A. C. Whitney was zealous and efficient in the cause 
from 1840 to 1850. The first practical measure was Senator Salmon 
P. Chase’s bill, making an appropriation for the explorations of 
different routes for a Pacific railway in 1853. Numerous bills were 
introduced in Congress between 1852 and 1860, granting subsidies and 
lands, and some of them appropriating as large a sum as $96,000,000 
for the construction of the road. One of these bills passed one of 
tlie houses of Congress. The results of the explorations ordered by 
Congress were printed in eleven large volumes, covering the country 
between the parallels of latitude thirty-second on the south and forty- 
ninth on the north, and demonstrating the feasibility of building a 
Pacific railway, but at a cost on any one of the lines much larger than 
the Union Pacific and Central Pacific w T ere built for. It is a singular 
fact that in all these explorations the most feasible line in an engi¬ 
neering and commercial point of view, the line with the least obstacles 
to overcome, of lowest grades and least curvature, was never explored 
and reported on. Private enterprise explored and developed that 
line along the forty-second parallel of latitude. 

This route was made by the buffalo, next used by the Indians, then 
by the fur traders, next by the Mormons, and then by the overland 
immigration to California and Oregon. It was known as the Great 
Platte Valley Route. On this trail, or close to it, was built the Union 
and Central Pacific railroads to California, and the Oregon Short 
Line branch of the Union Pacific to Oregon. 

In 1852 the Mississippi and Missouri Railroad Company was 
organized to build a line westward across the State of Iowa as an 
extension of the Chicago and Rock Island, then terminating at 
Rock Island, Ill. The principal men connected with this line were 
Henry Farnum and Thomas C. Durant. Peter A. Dev, who had been 
a division engineer of the Rock Island, was the chief engineer of the 
M. & M. in Iowa. He was a man of great ability, probity, and 
integrity. 


5 



How We Built The Union Pacific. 


In May, 1853, Mr. Peter A. Dey left the Rock Island, of which he 
was a division engineer, stationed at Tiskilwa, and commenced at 
Davenport, Iowa, the first survey of a railroad line across the State 
of Iowa. I had been with Mr. Dey about eight months as rodman, 
and under his direction had made a survey of the Peoria and Bureau 
Valley Railway in Illinois. Mr. Dey was made chief engineer of the 
M. & M., and took me to Iowa as assistant, and placed me in charge 
of the party in the field, certainly a very fine promotion for the 
limited experience I had, and it is one of the greatest satisfactions 
and j^leasures of my life to have had his friendship from the time 
1 entered his service until now. Mr. Dey is not only a very distin¬ 
guished citizen of Iowa, but is one of the most eminent engineers of 
the country. lie was known for his great ability, his uprightness, 
and the square deal he gave every one, and he has greatly honored his 
State in the many public positions lie has held. I look back upon 
my services with him with the greatest pleasure. He has a wide 
reputation as a civil engineer and railway constructor, and in later 
years as railway commissioner for the State of Iowa. 

In 1853 he gave the orders for the party that surveyed the first 
line across Iowa to examine the country west of the Missouri River. 
This was to determine where the M. & M. (now the Rock Island) 
line crossing Iowa should terminate on the Missouri River, in order 
to take advantage of, and, perhaps, become a part of the prospective 
line running west up the Great Platte Valley, then the chief thorough¬ 
fare for all the Mormon, California, and Oregon overland immigra¬ 
tion. It fell to my lot to be chief of this party. My examinations 
virtually determined that a railway line extending west from the 
Missouri River should go bv way of Sarpys Point (now Bellevue), 
or directly west from Kanesville, afterwards Council Bluffs, where 
the Mormons from Nauvoo were then resting on their way to 
Salt Lake. 

My party crossed the Missouri River in the fall of 1853 on flat- 
boats. The Omaha Indians occupied the country where we landed, 
and after obtaining a line rising from the bluffs west of where the 
city of Omaha now stands, I gave directions to the party to continue 
the survey while I went on ahead to examine the country to the Platte 
Valley some 25 miles farther west. I reached the Platte Valley about 
noon the next day, and being very tired, I lariated my horse and 
laid down with my saddle as a pillow and with my rifle under it, 
and went sound asleep. I was awakened by the neighing of the horse, 
and when I looked up I saw an Indian leading the horse toward the 
Elkhorn River, pulling with all his might and the horse holding back, 
evidently frightened. I was greatly frightened myself, hardly 
knowing what to do, but I suppose from instinct I grabbed my rifle 


6 




How We Built The Union Pacific . 




and started after the Indian, hollering at the top of my voice. The 
Indian saw me coming, let the horse go, and made his way across the 
Elkhorn River. This Indian afterwards was an enlisted man in the 
battalion of Pawnees that served under me in the Indian campaigns 
of 1865, and he told Major North, the commander of that battalion, 
that he let loose of the horse because I hollered so loud that it fright- 
ened him. On obtaining my horse, I saddled up and made my way 
back to the party that was camped on the Big Papillion on the emi¬ 
grant road leading from Florence to the Elkhorn. The camp was 
full of Omaha Indians and they had every man in the party cooking 
for them. I saw that we would soon lose all our provisions, and as 
the party was armed, I called them together and told them to get 
their arms. I only knew one Indian word, “ Puckechee,” which 
meant get out. That I told them, and while the Indians were surly 
they saw we were determined and they left us. I don’t believe there 
was anyone in the party that had ever seen an Indian before or had 
any experience with them. We were all tenderfeet. It taught me a 
lesson, never to allow an Indian in my camp or around it without 
permission, and this was my instructions to all our engineering 
parties. Those who obeyed it generally got through without losing 
their stock or lives. Those who were careless and disobeyed gener¬ 
ally lost their stock and some of their men. As soon as we had deter¬ 
mined the line from the Missouri River to the Platte we returned 
to Iowa City, which was the headquarters of the M. & M. Railway. 

The times were such that the work on the M. & M. Railway was 
suspended for some years. Meanwhile I located at Council Bluffs, 
continuing the explorations under the direction of Messrs. Farnam 
and Durant, and obtaining from voyagers, immigrants, and others 
all the information I could in regard to the country farther west. 
There was keen competition at that time for the control of the vast 
immigration crossing the plains, and Kansas City, Fort Leaven¬ 
worth (then the government post), St. Joseph, and Council Bluffs 
were points of concentration on the Missouri. The trails from 
all the points converged in the Platte Valley at or near old Fort 
Kearney, following its waters to the South Pass. A portion of the 
Kansas City immigration followed the valley of the Arkansas west, 
and thence through New Mexico. The great bulk of the immigration 
was finally concentrated at Council Bluffs as the best crossing of the 
Missouri River. From my explorations and the information I had 
obtained with the aid of the Mormons and others, I mapped and made 
an itinerary of a line from Council Bluffs through to Utah, Cali¬ 
fornia, and Oregon, giving the camping places for each night, and 
showing Avhere wood, water, and fords of streams could be found. 
Distributed broadcast by the local interests of this route this map 


7 




How We Built The Union Pacific. 


and itinerary had no small influence in turning the mass of overland 
immigration to Council Bluffs, where it crossed the Missouri and took 
the great Platte Valley route. This route was up that valley to its 
forks, and then up either the north or south fork to Salt Lake and 
California by way of the Humboldt, and to Oregon by way of the 
Snake and Columbia rivers. This is to-day the route of the Union 
and Central Pacifies to California and the Union Pacific to Oregon. 

After collecting all the information we could as to the best route 
for a railroad to the Pacific, I reported to Messrs. Farnam and 
Durant, who paid out of their private funds for all my work. In 
1857 or 1858 they asked me to visit New York. In the office of the 
Rock Island Railroad, over the Corn Exchange Bank in William 
street, I was brought before the board of directors of that road and 
the Mississippi and Missouri Railway, together with some friends 
who had been called in. The secretary of the company read my 
report. Before he was half through nearly every person had left 
the room, and when he had finished only Mr. Farnam, Mr. Durant, 
the reader, and myself were present. I could see that there was lack 
of faith and even interest in the matter. One of the directors said 
in the outer room that he did not see why they should be asked to 
hear such nonsense, but Messrs. Farnam and Durant did not lose 
faith. Since our survey in 1853, other companies had made surveys 
in Iowa, all concentrating at Council Bluffs. Farnam and Durant 
felt that if they could stimulate interest in the Pacific road it would 
enable them to raise funds to complete their line across the State, and 
authority was conferred upon me to begin work at Council Bluffs 
and build east through Pottawattamie County, if I could obtain 
local aid. This we secured, and the road was graded through that 
county, when we were called east to continue the work from Iowa 
City west. 

In 1854, when Nebraska was organized, we moved to its frontier, 
continuing the explorations under the patronage of Messrs. Farnam 
and Durant, and obtaining all valuable information, which was used 
to concentrate the influence of the different railways east and west 
of Chicago to the support of the forty-second parallel line. 

In 1861 we discontinued the railroad work because of the civil war. 
The passage of the bill of 1862, which made the building of a trans¬ 
continental railroad possible, was due primarily to the persistent ef¬ 
forts of Hon. Samuel R. Curtis, a Representative in Congress from 
Iowa, who reported the bill before entering the Union service in 1861. 
It was then taken up by Hon. James Harlan, of Iowa, who succeeded 
in obtaining its passage in March, 1862. 

Up to 1858 all the projects for building a railroad across the con¬ 
tinent were regarded as the Pacific roads, each route mentioned hav- 


8 




How We Built The Union Pacific. 


ing a particular name. The line along the forty-second parallel of 
latitude was designated as a line from San Francisco to a point on 
the Missouri River not farther north than Council Bluffs and not 
farther south than Independence, Mo., and was called the Pacific 
Railroad. The line surveyed by Stephens along the forty-ninth par¬ 
allel of latitude was called the North Route. The route along the 
thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth parallels, as the Buffalo Trail. It 
received that name from Thomas H. Benton. The route along the 
thirty-fifth and thirty-second parallels, as the South Route. The 
Government, however, made no explorations along the forty-second 
parallel; that was done by individual enterprise. In 1856 both 
political parties in convention passed resolutions favoring a Pacific 
railroad, and in 1857 President Buchanan advocated it as a reason 
for holding the Pacific coast people in the Union, and it was this 
sentiment that gave to the forty-second parallel line the name of the 
Union Pacific Railroad. In 1858 a select committee of fifteen was 
authorized by Congress on Pacific railroads and in the Thirty-fifth 
Congress, second session, this committee allowed the Hon. Samuel R. 
Curtis, of Iowa, to report the bill, and if I recollect rightly, this was 
the first bill that took the name of Union Pacific. In the Thirt} 7 - 
sixth Congress General Curtis became the champion of the Union 
Pacific Railroad, and it was advocated then as a strong element in 
holding the Union together. Curtis’s bill passed the House in Decem¬ 
ber, 1860. It failed to become a law, as the question of secession was 
up then and Lincoln had been elected President. In the extra ses¬ 
sion of the Thirty-second Congress in July, 1861, Curtis reintroduced 
the bill and he left Congress to enter the army. When Representa¬ 
tive Campbell, of Pennsylvania, became chairman of the committee, 
Senator Harlan, of Iowa, who had been elected to the Senate, be¬ 
came the strongest advocate of the bill in the Senate. Lincoln ad¬ 
vocated its passage and building, not only as a military necessity, but 
as a means of holding the Pacific coast to the Union. This bill be¬ 
came a law in 1862, and there is no doubt but what the sentiment that 
the building of the railroad would hold the Union together gave it 
the name of the Union Pacific. 

The Union Pacific Railway was organized on September 2, 1862, 
at Chicago, Maj. Gen. S. R. Curtis, of Iowa, being chairman of the 
commissioners appointed by Congress. The organization was per¬ 
fected by making Henry B. Ogden, of Chicago, president; Thomas 
W. Olcott, treasurer, and Henry Y. Poor, secretary. Mr. T. C. Du¬ 
rant selected Peter A. Dey to make a reconnoissance from the Missouri 
River to Salt Lake to be reported at the next meeting of the board. 
Mr. Dey immediately entered upon his work and extended his 
reconnoissance through to Salt Lake Valley. 

9 





How We Built The Union Paeifie . 


In the spring of 1863, when in command of the district of Corinth, 
Miss., I received a dispatch from General Grant to proceed to Wash¬ 
ington and report to President Lincoln. No explanation coming with 
the dispatch, and having a short time before organized and armed 
some negroes for the purpose of guarding a contraband camp which 
we had at Corinth, which act had been greatly criticised in the army 
and by civilians, I was somewhat alarmed, thinking possibly I was 
to be called to account. But on arriving at Washington I discovered 
that my summons was due to an interview between Mr. Lincoln and 
myself at Council Bluffs in August, 1859. He was there to look after 
an interest in the Riddle tract he had bought of Mr. N. B. Judd, of 
Chicago. T had just arrived from an exploring trip to the westward. 
It was quite an event for an exploring party to reach the States, and 
after dinner, while I was resting on the stoop of the Pacific House, 
Mr. Lincoln sat down beside me, and by his kindly ways soon drew 
from me all I knew of the country west, and the results of my recon¬ 
naissances. As the saying is, he completely “ shelled my woods,” get¬ 
ting all the secrets that were later to go to my employers. 

Under the law of 1862 the President was to fix the eastern terminus 
of the Union Pacific Railway, and, remembering our talk in the 
fifties, he wished to consult me. in the matter. Several towns on the 
Missouri River were competing for the terminus,, but Mr. Lincoln 
practically settled the question in favor of the location I recom¬ 
mended. He issued his first order on November IT, 1863. It was in 
his own language, and as follows: 

I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby fix so much 
of the western boundary of the State of Iowa as lies between the north and 
south boundaries of the United States township within which the city of Omaha 
is situated as the point from which the line of railroad and telegraph in that 
section mentioned shall be constructed. 

This order was not considered definite enough by the company, and 
on March T, 1864, President Lincoln issued the second executive order, 
as follows: 

I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do, upon the application 
of said company, designate and establish such first-named point on the eastern 
boundary of the State of Iowa east of and opposite to the east line of section 
10, in township 15 south, of range 13 east, of the sixth principal meridian in 
the Territory of Nebraska. 

On March 8, 1864, he notified the United States Senate that on 
the 17th day of November, 1863, he had located the “eastern ter¬ 
minus of the Union Pacific Railway within the limits of the township 
in Iowa opposite to the town of Omaha.” Since then, he says, the 
company has represented to me that upon additional survey made it 
has determined upon the precise point of departure of the branch road 


10 



How We Built The Union Pacific. 


from the Missouri River, and located same within the limits desig¬ 
nated in the order of November last. 

He was very anxious that the road should be built and discussed 
that question with me. 

I explained to him as clearly as I could how difficult it would be 
to build it by private enterprise, and said I thought it should be taken 
up and built by the Government. He objected to this, saying the 
Government would give the project all possible aid and support, but 
could not build the road; that it had all it could possibly handle in 
the conflict now going on. But the Government would make any 
change in the law or give any reasonable aid to insure the building 
of the road by private enterprise. 

After my interview with the President, I proceeded to New York 
and met Mr. T. C. Durant, then practically at the head of the Union 
Pacific interests, and other interested persons. After I had presented 
the President’s views they took new courage, and at the yearly meet¬ 
ing of the company, Gen. John A. Dix was made president, Thomas 
C. Durant, vice-president, II. V. Poor, secretary, and J. J. Cisco, 
treasurer. They then submitted to Congress the necessary changes 
needed in the law of 1862, in order to bring the capital of the country 
to their support. 

In the fall of 1863 Mr. Durant had personally instructed Mr. Dey 
to organize parties for immediate surveys to determine the line from 
the Missouri River up the Platte Valley, to run- a line over the first 
range of mountains, known as the Black Hills, and to examine the 
Wasatch Range. In his report Mr. Durant said: 

It is here that the information derived from the examinations made by Gen. 
G. M. Dodge, and those made last year by Peter A. Dey, who was sent out by 
the committee appointed by your board of commissioners, proved of great 
value, as the present parties will avail themselves of the examinations made by 
these gentlemen, and will first run the lines which they found most practicable. 

In accordance with these instructions, Mr. Dey placed B. B. Bray- 
ton in charge of the party examining the Black Hills, and, at Mr. 
Dey’s request, Brigham Young placed his son, James A. Young, in 
charge of the surveys over the Wasatch. Mr. Dey, who had become 
chief engineer, placed engineering parties in the field covering the 
territory from the Missouri River to Salt Lake. 

Ground was broken at Omaha for the beginning of the road on 
the 1st day of December, 1863, and after the passage of the act of 
1861 about $500,000 was spent in grading and surveys. 

A question as to the location brought a disturbing contest between 
Omaha and the company. Mr. Dey had located the line due west to 
the Elkhorn River. The consulting engineer, Colonel Seymour, 
recommended a change, increasing the distance 9 or more miles in 13, 


11 




How We Built The Union Pacific. 


The main argument for adding 9 miles of distance in 13 miles of road 
was that it eliminated the 80 and 66 foot grades of the direct line. 
If this had been done there would have been some argument for the 
change, but they only eliminated the grades from the Omaha summit 
west, while it took 3 miles of 60 and 66-foot grade from the Missouri 
River to reach this summit, and coming east the Elkhorn summit 
was an 80-foot grade, so by the change and addition of 9 miles they 
made no reductions in the original maximum grades, or in the ton¬ 
nage hauled in a train on the new lines over the old line, if it had 
been built. The grades at Omaha and Elkhorn have been eliminated 
since 1900, and the new management are adopting the old Dey line 
for the distance it saves, and bringing the grade to the road’s maxi¬ 
mum of 47 feet to the mile. It was Mr. Dey’s intention that when 
traffic demanded the original short line grades would be reduced to 
whatever maximum grade the road should finally adopt. After a 
long contest and many reports the Government provided that the 
change should only be made if the Omaha and Elkhorn grades were 
eliminated, the first by a line running south from Omaha 2 miles 
down the Missouri Valley and cutting through the bluffs to Muddy 
Creek, giving a 35-foot maximum grade, and the Elkhorn by addi¬ 
tional cutting and filling without changing the line, but this was 
never done. The company paid no attention to the decision, but built 
on the changed line, letting the grades at Omaha and Elkhorn stand, 
and the government commissioners accepted the road, ignoring the 
Government’s conditions for the change, and bonds were issued upon 
it, although it was a direct violation of the government order. The 
final decision in favor of the change and the ignoring of Mr. Dey’s 
recommendations in letting the construction contracts caused Mr. 
Dey, in January, 1865, to send in his resignation. He stated in his 
letter of resignation that he was giving up “ the best position in his 
profession this country has offered to any man.” 

The officers of the Union Pacific then requested me to return and 
take charge of the work. I was then in command of the United 
States forces on the plains in the Indian campaigns, and General 
Grant was not willing that I should leave, so I finished my work 
there and went to Omaha on the 1st of May, 1866, and assumed the 
duties of chief engineer, having been allowed leave of absence through 
the following letter of General Sherman: 

Headquarters Military Division of the Mississippi, 

St. Louis, May 1, I860. 

Major-General Dodge. 

Dear General : I have your letter of April 27, and I readily consent to what 
you ask. I think General Pope should be at Leavenworth before you leave, 
and I expected he would he at Leavenworth by May 1, but he has not yet come. 
As soon as he reaches Leavenworth, or St. Louis even, I consent to your going 

12 




How We Built The Union Pacific. 


to Omaha to begin what, I trust, will be the real beginning of the great road. I 
start to-morrow for Riley, whence I will cross over to Kearney by land, and 
thence come in to Omaha, where I hope to meet you. I will send your letter 
this morning to Pope’s office and indorse your request that a telegraph message 
be sent to General Pope to the effect that he is wanted at Leavenworth. Hop¬ 
ing to meet you soon, I am, 

Yours, truly, 

W. T. Sherman, M. G. 

The organization for work on the plains away from civilization 
was as follows: Each of our surveying parties consisted of a chief, 
who was an experienced engineer, two assistants, also civil engineers, 
rodmen, flagmen, and chainmen, generally graduated civil engineers 
but without personal experience in the field, besides axmen, teamsters, 
and herders. When the party was expected to live upon the game of 
the country a hunter was added. Each party would thus consist of 
from eighteen to twenty-two men, all armed. AVhen operating in a 
hostile Indian country they were regularly drilled, though after the 
civil war this was unnecessary, as most of them had been in the army. 
Each party entering a country occupied by hostile Indians was gen¬ 
erally furnished with a military escort of from ten men to a company 
under a competent officer. The duty of this escort was to protect the 
party when in camp. In the field the escort usually occupied promi¬ 
nent hills commanding the territory in which the work was to be 
done, so as to head off sudden attacks by the Indians. Notwith¬ 
standing this protection, the parties were often attacked, their chief 
or some of their men killed or wounded, and their stock run off. 

In preliminary surveys in the open country a party would run 
from 8 to 12 miles of line in a day. On location in an open country 
3 or 4 miles would be covered, but in a mountainous country generally 
not to exceed a mile. All hands worked from daylight to dark, the 
country being reconnoitered ahead of them by the chief, who indi¬ 
cated the streams to follow, and the controlling points in summits and 
river crossings. The party of location that followed the preliminary 
surveys had the maps and profiles of the line selected for location and 
devoted its energies to obtaining a line of the lowest grades and the 
least curvature that the country would admit. 

The location party in our work on the Union Pacific was followed 
by the construction corps, grading generally 100 miles at a time. 
That distance was graded in about thirty days on the plains, as a 
rule, but in the mountains we sometimes had to open our grading 
several hundred miles ahead of our track in order to complete the 
grading by the time the track should reach it. All the supplies for 
this work had to be hauled from the end of the track, and the wagon 
transportation was enormous. At one time we were using at least 


13 



How We Built The Union Pacific. 


10,000 animals, and most of the time from 8,000 to 10,000 laborers. 
The bridge gangs always worked from 5 to 20 miles ahead of the 
track, and it was seldom that the track waited for a bridge. To sup¬ 
ply 1 mile of track with material and supplies required about 40 cars, 
as on the plains everything, rails, ties, bridging, fastenings, all rail¬ 
way supplies, fuel for locomotives and trains, and supplies for men 
and animals on the entire work, had to be- transported from the Mis¬ 
souri River. Therefore, as we moved westward, every hundred miles 
added vastly to our transportation. Yet the work was so systematic¬ 
ally planned and executed that I do not remember an instance in all 
the construction of the line of the work being delayed a single week 
for want of material. Each winter we planned the work for the 
next season. By the opening of spring, about April 1, every part of 
the machinery was in working order, and in no year did we fail to 
accomplish our work. After 18GO the reports will show what we 
started out to do each year, and what we accomplished. 

The following extract from a letter written to me by Gen. W. T. 
Sherman as to what we promised to do in 1807, which was only about 
one-half what we prepared to do and did accomplish in 1808, indi¬ 
cates how one year’s experience helped us in the progress of the next. 
It also shows, what the country now seems in a great measure to have 
forgotten, that the Pacific Railroad, now regarded chiefly in the light 
of a transcontinental, commercial highway, was then looked upon as 
a military necessity and as the one thing positively essential to the 
binding together of the republic East and West: 

St. Louis, January 16, 1867. 

My Dear Dodge: I have just read with intense interest your letter of the 
14th, and, though you wanted it kept to myself, I believe you will sanction my 
sending it to General Grant for his individual perusal, to be returned to me. 
It is almost a miracle to grasp your purpose to finish to Fort Sanders (288 
miles) this year, but you have done so much that I mistrust my own judgment 
and accept yours. I regard this road of yours as the solution of the Indian 
affairs and the Mormon question, and, therefore, give you all the aid I possibly 
can, but the demand for soldiers everywhere and the slowness of enlistment, 
especially among the blacks, limit our ability to respond. Each officer exag¬ 
gerates his own troubles and appeals for men. 1 now have General Terry on 
the upper Missouri, General Augur with you, and General Hancock just below, 
all enterprising young men, tit for counsel or for the field. I will endeavor to 
arrange so that hereafter all shall act on common principles and with a common 
purpose, and the first' step, of course, is to arrange for the accumulation of the 
necessary men and materials at the right points, for which your railroad is the 
very thing. So far as interest in your section is concerned, you may rest easy 
that both Grant and I feel deeply concerned in the safety of your great national 
enterprise. 

It was not until after November, 1807, when we had been at work 
two years, that we got railroad communication with the East at Coun- 


14 





DALE CREEK BRIDGE. 













































How We Built The Union Pacific . 


cil Bluffs, Iowa, the initial point of the Union Pacific Railway, by 
the completion of the Northwestern Railway. Till then the Missouri 
River had been the sole route over which supplies could be had. It 
was available only about three months of the year, and our construc¬ 
tion was limited by the quantities of rail and equipment that could 
be brought to us by boat in that time. In twelve months of work 
after we had rail communication, we located, built, and equipped 587 
miles of road, working only from one end, transporting everything 
connected with it an average distance of 800 miles west of the Mis¬ 
souri River. This feat has not yet been surpassed. In accomplish¬ 
ing it we crossed the divide of the continent and two ranges of moun¬ 
tains, one of which was the- Wasatch, where in the winter of 1868-69 
we had to blast the earth the same as the rocks. 

Our Indian troubles commenced in 1864 and lasted until the tracks 
joined $t Promontory. We lost most of our men and stock while 
building from Fort Kearney to Bitter Creek. At that time every 
mile of road had to be surveyed, graded, tied, and bridged under mili¬ 
tary protection. The order to every surveying corps, grading, bridg¬ 
ing, and tie outfit was never to run when attacked. All were required 
to be armed, and I do not know that the order was disobeyed in a 
single instance, nor did I ever hear that the Indians had driven a 
party permanently from its work. I remember one occasion when 
they swooped down on a grading outfit in sight of the temporary fort 
of the military some 5 miles away, and right in sight of the end of 
the track. The government commission to examine that section of 
the completed road had just arrived, and the commissioners wit¬ 
nessed the fight. The graders had their arms stacked on the cut. 
The Indians leaped from the ravines, and, springing upon the work¬ 
men before they could reach their arms, cut loose the stock and caused 
a panic. Gen. Frank P. Blair, General Simpson, and Doctor White 
were the commissioners, and they showed their grit by running to 
my car for arms to aid in the fight. We did not fail to benefit from 
this experience, for, on returning to the East the commission dwelt 
earnestly on the necessity of our being protected. 

From the beginning to the completion of the road our success de¬ 
pended in a great measure on the cordial and active support of the 
army, especially its commander in chief, General Grant, and the 
commander of the Military Division of the West, General Sherman, 
lie took a personal interest in the project. He visited the work sev¬ 
eral times each year during its continuance, and I was in the habit 
of communicating with him each month, detailing my progress and 
laying before him my plans. In return I received letters from him 
almost every month. We also had the cordial support of the district 
commanders of the country through which we operated—General 

15 



IIow We Built The Union Pacific. 


Augur, General Cook, General Gibbon, and General Stevenson, and 
their subordinates. General Grant had given full and positive in¬ 
structions that every support should be given to me, and General 
Sherman in the detailed instructions practically left it to my own 
judgment as to what support should be given by the troops on the 
plains. They were also instructed to furnish my surveying parties 
with provisions from the posts whenever our provisions should give 
out, and the subordinate officers, following the example of their 
chiefs, responded to every demand made, no matter at what time of 
day or night, what time of year or in what weather, and took as 
much interest in the matter as we did. 

General Sherman’s great interest in the enterprise originated from 
the fact that he personally, in 1849, took from General Smith, com¬ 
mander on the Pacific coast, the instructions to Lieutenants Warner 
and Williamson, of the engineers, who made the first surveys coming 
east from California, to ascertain, if possible, whether it was practi¬ 
cable to cross the Sierra Nevada range of mountains with a railroad. 
These instructions were sent at General Sherman’s own suggestion, 
and the orders and examination preceded the act of Congress making 
appropriations for explorations and surveys for a railroad route 
from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean by four years. Gen¬ 
eral Sherman’s interest lasted during his lifetime, and was signalized 
in the closing days of his official life by a summary of transcontinental 
railroad construction, the most exhaustive paper on the subject I 
have ever seen. 

When I took charge as chief engineer of the Union Pacific Rail¬ 
way in 1866, I knew that my first duty would be to determine the 
crossing of the line over the Black Hills, a bold, high spur of the 
Rocky Mountains, and I concentrated my engineering forces for that 
purpose. It had already been ascertained that we could get down to 
the Laramie plains from the summit going west, but the route had 
not been determined going east. In my examinations made while 
coming home from the Powder River expedition in 1865 I had found 
what I believed to be the most practicable route from the summit 
to the foot of the mountains on the east, and directed that it be 
examined. This was immediately done, and the route was found 
jiracticable. 

After the battle of Atlanta, my assignment to the Department of 
the Missouri brought the country between the Missouri River and 
California under my command, and then I was charged with the 
Indian campaigns of 1865 and 1866. I traveled again over all that 
portion of the country I had explored in former years, and saw the 
beginning of that great future that awaited it. I then began to 
comprehend its capabilities and resources; and in all movements 

16 




How We Built The Union Pacific. 


of our troops and scouting parties I had reports made upon the 
country—its resources and topography; and I, myself, during the two 
years traversed it east and west, north and south, from the Arkansas 
to the Yellowstone, and from the Missouri to Salt Lake basin. 

It was on one of these trips that I discovered the pass through the 
Black Hills and gave it the name of Sherman, in honor of my great 
chief. Its elevation is 8,236 feet, and for years it was the highest 
point reached by any railroad in the United States. The circum¬ 
stances of this accidental discovery may not be uninteresting. 

While returning from the Powder River campaign, I was in the 
habit of leaving my troops and trains, and with a few men, examining 
all the approaches and passes from Fort Laramie south over the 
secondary range of mountains known as the Black Hills, the most 
difficult to overcome with proper grades of all the ranges, on account 
of its short slopes and great height. When I reached the Lodge Pole 
Creek, up which went the overland trail, I took a few mounted men— 
I think six—and with one of my scouts as guide, went up the creek 
to the summit of Cheyenne Pass, striking south along the crest of 
the mountains to obtain a good view of the country, the troops and 
trains at the same time passing along the east base of the moun¬ 
tains on what was known as the St. Vrain and the Laramie trail. 

About noon, in the valley of a tributary of Crow Creek, we discov¬ 
ered Indians, who, at the same time, discovered us. They were 
between us and our trains. I saw our danger and took means imme¬ 
diately to reach the ridge and try to head them off, and follow it to 
where the cavalry could see our signals. We dismounted and started 
down the ridge, holding the Indians at bay, when they came too 
near, with our Winchesters. It was nearly night when the troops 
saw our smoke signals of danger and came to our relief; and in 
going to the train we followed this ridge put until I discovered it 
led down to the plains without a break. I then said to my guide 
that if we saved our scalps I believed we had found the crossing of 
the Black Hills—and over this ridge, between Lone Tree and Crow 
creeks, the wonderful line over the mountains was built. For over 
two years all explorations had failed to find a satisfactory crossing 
of this range. The country east of it was unexplored, but we had 
no doubt we could reach it. 

The year 1866 was spent in determining the crossing of the Rocky 
Mountains or the Black Hills, and the approaches to them from 
the east. It was the great desire of the company to build the 
line through Denver, Colo., if possible, up the South Platte Valley 
and crossing the mountains west of Denver and reaching Salt Lake 
by the Yampa, White, and Uinta valleys, and I covered the country 
from the Laramie Canyon on the north to the Arkansas on the south, 
S. Doc. 447, 61-2—10-2 17 



Row We Built The Union Pacific . 


examining all the mountain passes and approaches and examined 
all these lines personally. These surveys demonstrated that there 
was no question as to where the line should cross these mountains. 
The general examination of the plains along the east foot of the 
mountains showed that the plains rose from the Arkansas north until 
they reached their apex at the valley of Crow Creek, near where 
Cheyenne now stands. Then they fell to the north toward the 
Laramie, and when we came to examine the summits of these 
mountains, we found their lowest altitude was in the vicinity of the 
Cheyenne Pass, so that there was no question as to Avhere our line 
should run. The line up the Platte and up the Lodge Pole and by 
the Lone Tree Pass which I had discovered, was far superior to any 
other line, and it forced us to abandon the line in the direction of 
Denver, and we had in view the building of a branch from Crow 
Creek to Denver, about 112 miles long. I reported the result of my 
examination on November 15, 18GG, to the company, and on Novem¬ 
ber 23, 186G, the company adopted the lines which I had recom¬ 
mended, and I immediately proceeded to develop them for building 
the next year. We also examined this year the line by the v T ay of 
the North Platte, Fort Laramie, Sweet Water Creek and the South 
Pass, reaching Salt Lake b}^ the v r ay of the Big Sandy and Black 
Fork. This line avoided the crossing of the Black Hills and the 
heavy grade ascending from the east to the summit and the ninety- 
foot grade dropping down into the Laramie plains, but this line Avas 
some forty miles longer than the direct line by the Lodge Pole, and 
on this line there Avas no development of coal as there Avas on the 
line adopted by the company, and on presenting this question to the 
Government, they decided against the North Platte and South Pass 
line. The chiefs of parties for this work were: James A. Evans, 
who Avas an engineer of great ability, Mr. P. T. Brown, who Avas an 
assistant engineer, a young man who started out in 1864 as a rodman. 
He made the surveys through Clear Creek to the Middle Park, over 
the Burthud Pass; also the Boulder Pass. On this pass in November, 
the party w T as caught in the severest snoAv storm known in the moun¬ 
tains, and he was obliged to abandon his pack train and save his 
party by working his Avay eastward through the storm to Boulder 
Creek. His stock drifted to Middle Park. There they wintered 
near the hot springs. I received knowledge through one of my old 
mountain friends that they were there in good condition, and we 
recovered them in the spring. Mr. L. L. Hills, assistant engineer, 
had charge of the surveys on the Lodge Pole line and up the Cache 
La Poudre River to Laramie Plains, and Mr. J. E. House had charge 
of the surveys, soundings, and examination of the Missouri Kiver. 
Mr. F. A. Case, division engineer, was completing the examination 


18 




Mapaggas egs&gs Mornm i paBa p aagam v 




>**** 




Left to right, standing: Lieut. J. W. Wheelan, Lieut. Col. J. K. Mizner, Dr. Henry B. Terry, John E. Corwith. 
Left to right, sitting: D. Van Lennep, John R. Duff, Gen. G. M. Dodge, John A. Rawlins, J‘. W. McK. Dunn. 























How We Built The Union Pacific. 


of the passes through the main range, made the year before, and Mr. 
F. H. Ainsworth was running the lines in the Platte Valley, while 
Mr. Thomas II. Bates had charge of the surveys in Utah and west 
to the California state line. The explorations and surveys of I860 
had only confirmed the reconnoissance made in the fifties by Mr. 
Dey and myself of the general route of the Union Pacific Railroad, 
so that for the years to come our work would be almost entirely 
devoted to the final locations. 

Tn the spring of 18()T I received a letter from General Grant, sug¬ 
gesting that in my explorations during the year 1867, I take with me 
his chief of staff, Gen. John A. Rawlins, for the benefit of his health. 
General Rawlins had shown a tendency toward consumption, and it 
was thought that three or four months in camp on the plains would 
be of great benefit to him. I therefore with great pleasure invited 
General Rawlins to accompany me, with such friends as he might 
select. lie came to me at Omaha, bringing with him Maj. J. W. 
McK. Dunn, A. I). C., and John E. Corwith, of Galena, TIL, and 
added to this party on my invitation was John R. Duff, son of a 
director of the road, and Mr. David Van Lennep, my geologist. We 
had as an escort two companies of cavalry and two of infantry, 
under the command of Lieut. Col. J. Iv. Mizner, who had with him 
Lieut. J. W. Wheelan and Dr. Henry B. Terry, assistant surgeon, 
U. S. Army. They accompanied me during the entire summer. We 
started out the 1st of June and went to the end of the track, which 
was then at North Platte, and from there we marched immediately 
up the Platte, then up the Lodge Pole to the east base of the Black 
Hills, where we were joined by Gen. C. C. Augur, who was then in 
command of that department, with his staff. General Augur’s in¬ 
structions were to locate the military post where I located the end 
of the division, at the east base of the mountains, and after a thorough 
examination of the country, I located the division point on Crow 
Creek, where Cheyenne now stands, and named it Cheyenne, and 
General Augur immediately located just north of the town the mili¬ 
tary post of D. A. Russell. We spent the Fourth of July at this place, 
and Gen. John A. Rawlins delivered a very remarkable and patriotic 
speech. 

At this time the heaviest settlement was Denver, some 112 miles 
away. While we were camped here the Indians swooped down out 
of the ravine of Crow Creek and attacked a Mormon grading train 
and outfit that was coming from Salt Lake to take work on the road 
and killed two if its men. Our cavalry hastily mounted and drove 
off the Indians and saved their stock. We buried the men and started 
the graveyard of the future city, now the capital of the State of 
Wyoming. 


10 





How We Built The Union Pacific . 


In the spring of 1867 there was a party in the field under L. L. 
Hills running a line east from the base of the Rocky Mountains. The 
first word I received from it was through the commanding officer at 
Camp Collins, who had served under me while I commanded the de¬ 
partment. He informed me that a young man named J. M. Eddy 
had brought the party into that post, its chief having been killed in a 
fight with the Indians. I inquired who Eddy was and was informed 
that he was an axman in the party, and had served under me in the 
civil war. I ordered him to meet me with his party on the Lodge Pole 
as I traveled west. He turned out to be a young boy who had entered 
the Thirteenth Illinois when only 16 or 17. The fight in which Mr. 
Hills, the chief, was killed occurred some 6 miles east of Cheyenne, 
and after the leader was lost young Eddy rallied the party and by 
the force of his own character took it into Camp Collins. Of course 
I immediately promoted him. He was with me during the entire con¬ 
struction of the Union Pacific, rising from one position to another, 
until he became the general manager of portions of the great South¬ 
western system. He died in the railway service. 

After meeting this party, I completed the location of the line to 
Ci’oav Creek, at the foot of the mountains, now known as Cheyenne. 

. We marched west across the Black Hills and Laramie Plains and 
passed through Rattle Snake Hills Pass, following down a stream 
that emptied into the Platte just opposite Fort Steele and at a point 
where the Union Pacific now crosses the North Platte River. We 
crossed this stream by swimming our horses and proceeded west. The 
country from the Platte west to the Bitter Creek is very dry, no run¬ 
ning water in it, and before we reached camp General Rawlins became 
very thirsty, and we started out in an endeavor to find running water, 
and I discovered a spring in a draw near where the town of Rawlins 
now stands. When General Rawlins reached this spring he said it 
was the most gracious and acceptable of anything he had had on 
the march, and also said that if any thing was ever named for him, 
he wanted it to be a spring of water, and I said then, “ We will name 
this Rawlins Springs.” It took that name. The end of one of our 
divisions happened to be close to this spring, and I named the station 
Rawlins, which has groAvn now into quite a toAvn and a division point 
of the Union Pacific road. 

As soon as I had determined the line over the Black Hills, I 
learned that one of the parties which was trying to Avork west from 
the North Platte had found the maps of the country misleading. 
Endeavoring to find the summit of the continental divide, this party 
had dropped into a great basin. Percy T. BroAvn, the chief of the 
party, finding himself in an unknown country entirely different in 
character from Avhat had been expected, took eight of his escort and 

20 



How We Built The Union Pacific. 


started to explore the region. When near the center of what is now 
known as the Red Desert he was attacked by 300 Sioux Indians 
working south to the Bridger Pass stage road coming from the Sweet¬ 
water. Brown took measures to defend himself, occupying, after a 
severe contest with the Indians for its possession, a small hill, and 
fighting from 12 o’clock noon until toward night, when he was shot 
through the abdomen. He then ordered the soldiers to leave him 
and save themselves, but thej^ refused, and allowed the Indians to 
get hold of the stock, after which the redskins withdrew. The sol¬ 
diers then made a litter of their carbines and packed Brown upon it 
15 miles through the sagebrush to Laclere station, near Bridgers 
Pass. Their laborious efforts to save him were made in vain, how¬ 
ever, for Brown died at the station. 

Upon an examination of this country we discovered that the divide 
of the continent had let down from the Wind River Mountains on 
the north to Medicine Bow, the beginning of the main Rocky Moun¬ 
tains on the south from an elevation of 13,000 feet to one of 7,000 into 
an open plain, and that the divide was in reality a great basin about 
80 miles across in its widest part east and west, and 100 to 150 miles 
northwest and southeast in its longest part. The streams running 
into it sink, leaving a red soil over the entire basin, from which it 
receives the name of the Red Desert. The Union Pacific Railway 
crossed the Red Desert near its southern limit, between the stations 
of Creston and Tipton, a distance of about 34 miles. 

In the basin we found and rescued the party headed by Thomas F. 
Bates, which was coming from Green River east. When I reached 
what is now Creston I discovered Bates and his party. They had 
been in the widest part of the basin for nearly a week without water, 
and were almost exhausted. When we discovered them they had 
abandoned t ie line and were taking a course due east by the compass, 
running for water. At first we thought them Indians, but on looking 
through my glasses I saw that they had teams with them. We went 
to their relief at once and saved them. They were in a deplorable 
condition from thirst. 

On the western rim of the basin, as I left it, I ran into the remains 
of some old wagons and other articles Avhich indicated that some 
military force had tried to cross there. Afterwards I learned that 
it had been Colonel Steptoe’s expedition to Oregon, and that in 
crossing from Bridgers Pass trying to reach northwest, they struck 
this country and were obliged to abandon a portion of their outfit. 
This demonstrated that no knowledge of this depression was had by 
anyone until we developed it in our surveys. We had great difficulty 
in obtaining water for the operation of our road through the basin, 
being obliged to sink artesian wells to a great depth. After reaching 


21 




// ow We Built The Union Pacific. 


the west rim of the Red Desert you immediately drop into the valley 
of Bitter Creek, the waters of which flow into the Pacific. The 
crossing of the continental divide by the Union Pacific is thus by 
way of an open prairie of comparatively low elevation, about 7,000 
feet, instead of a mountain range. The work of building the road 
there was unexpectedly light, and it almost seems that nature made 
this great opening in the Rocky Mountains expressly for the passage 
of a transcontinental railway. 

The law of 1802 provided that the Union Pacific and Central 
Pacific should join their tracks at the California state line. The law 
of 1864 allowed the Central Pacific to build 150 miles east of the 
state line, but that was changed by the law of 1866, and the two 
companies allowed to build, one east and the other west, until they 
met. The building of 500 miles of road during the summers of 1866 
and 1867, hardly twelve months 1 actual work, had aroused great 
interest in the country, and much excitement, in which the Govern¬ 
ment took a part. We were pressed to as speedy a completion of 
the road as possible, although ten years had been allowed by Con¬ 
gress. The officers of the Union Pacific had become imbued with 
this spirit, and they urged me to plan to build as much road as possi¬ 
ble in 1868. I have already alluded to the completion of the North¬ 
western Railway in December, 1867, to Council Bluffs, Iowa, which 
gave us an all-rail connection with the East, so that we could obtain 
our rail material and equipment during the entire year. The reach¬ 
ing of the summit of the first range of the Rocky Mountains, which 
I named Sherman, in honor of my old commander, in 1867, placed 
us comparatively near good timber for ties and bridges, which, after 
cutting, could be floated down the mountain streams at some points 
to our crossing, and at others to within 25 or 30 miles of our work. 
This afforded great relief to the transportation. 

In the fall of 1867, when we closed our work and ended our track 
at the summit of the Black Hills, the company was apparently at 
their end, so far as finances were concerned, and were greatly dis¬ 
turbed as to the future. When I had received all of my parties’ re¬ 
ports, extending to the California state line, and had completed the 
profiles, maps, and estimates, I went on to New York and met the 
board of directors, and when they saw the very favorable line that 
we had obtained over the Black Hills, across the Laramie plains and 
over the divide of the continent, where they had expected to meet 
very heavy work, and also the line over the Wasatch Range to Salt 
Lake and from there on west, they were very much encouraged. 
The estimates on this line were not more than one-half of what they 
had expected, and then a few miles west of Cheyenne they would 
commence receiving $48,000 in government bonds per mile for 150 


99 



How We Built The Union Pacific. 


miles, and from there on $32,000 in government bonds per mile, 
which was a great advance on the amount that they had received on 
the G30 miles from the Missouri River to the east base of the moun¬ 
tains, which was only $10,000 in government bonds per mile, while 
the cost of the work had been very heavy on account of the long 
distance rails, timber, supplies, and everything had to be hauled 
and the extra cost from the fact that the country furnished nothing 
for the road. The company immediately made extraordinary effort 
to provide the money to build to Salt Lake, and during the winter I 
received instructions to make every effort to build as much line as 
possible the coming year, and the company forwarded to us at our 
base on the Missouri River an immense amount of rails, fastenings, 
etc., as we then had rail connections by the Northwestern road all the 
way to Council Bluffs. 

We made our plans to build to Salt Lake, 480 miles, in 1808, and 
to endeavor to meet the Central Pacific at Humboldt Wells, 219 miles 
west of Ogden, in the spring of 1809. I had extended our surveys 
during the years 1807 and 1808 to the California state line, and laid 
my plans before the company, and the necessary preparations were 
made to commence work as soon as frost was out of the ground, say 
about April 1. Material had been collected in sufficient quantities 
at the end of the track to prevent any delay. During the winter ties 
and bridge timber had been cut and prepared in the mountains to 
bring to the line at convenient points, and the engineering forces 
were started to their positions before cold weather was over, that 
the}' might be ready to begin their work as soon as the temperature 
would permit. I remember that the parties going to Salt Lake 
crossed the Wasatch Mountains on sledges, and that the snow cov¬ 
ered the tops of the telegraph poles. We all knew and appreciated 
that the task we had laid out would require the greatest energy on 
the part of all hands. About April 1, therefore, I went onto the 
plains myself and started our construction forces, remaining the 
whole summer between Laramie and the Humboldt Mountains. I 
was surprised at the rapidity with which the work was carried for¬ 
ward. Winter caught us in the Wasatch Mountains, but we kept on 
grading our road and laying our track in the snow and ice at a tre¬ 
mendous cost. I estimated for the company that the extra cost of 
thus forcing the work during that summer and winter was over 
$10,000,000, but the instructions I received were to go on, no matter 
what the cost. Spring found us with the track at Ogden, and by 
May 1 we had reached Promontory, 534 miles west of our starting 
point twelve months before. Work on our line was opened to Hum¬ 
boldt Wells, making in the year a grading of 754 miles of line. 




How We Built The Union Pacific. 


The Central Pacific had made wonderful progress coming east, and 
we abandoned the work from Promontory to Humboldt Wells, bend¬ 
ing all our efforts to meet them at Promontory. Between Ogden and 
Promontory each company graded a line, running side by side, and 
in some places one line was right above the other. The laborers upon 
the Central Pacific were Chinamen, while ours were Irishmen, and 
there was much ill-feeling between them. Our Irishmen Avere in the 
habit of firing their blasts in the cuts without giving warning to the 
Chinamen on the Central Pacific working right above them. From 
this cause several Chinamen Avere severely hurt. Complaint Avas 
made to me by the Central Pacific people, and I endeavored to have 
the contractors bring all hostilities to a close, but, for some reason 
or other, they failed to do so. One day the Chinamen, appreciating 
the situation, put in what is called a “ grave ” on their Avork, and 
Avhen the Irishmen right under them were all at work let go their 
blast and buried several of our men. This brought about a truce at 
once. From that time the Irish laborers shoAved due respect for the 
Chinamen, and there Avas no further trouble. 

When the tAvo roads approached in May, 1869, Ave agreed to connect 
at the summit of Promontory Point, and the day Avas fixed so that 
trains could reach us from New York and California. We laid the 
rails to the junction point a day or tAvo before the final closing. Com¬ 
ing from the East, representing the Union Pacific, Avere Thomas C. 
Durant, vice-president; Sidney Dillon, who had taken a prominent 
part in the construction of the road from the beginning, and John R. 
Duff, directors, together with the consulting engineer and a carload 
of friends. From the West the representatives of the Central Pacific 
Avere its president, Leland Stanford; Mr. Collis P. Huntington, Mr. 
Crocker, Mr. Hopkins, Mr. Colton, and other members of that com¬ 
pany, and Mr. Montague, chief engineer, and a detachment of 
troops from Camp Douglass, Salt Lake City. The two trains pulled 
up facing each other, each crowded with workmen who sought ad- 
vantageous positions to witness the ceremonies, and literally covered 
the cars. The officers and invited guests formed on each side of the 
track, leaving it open to the south. The telegraph lines had been 
brought to that point, so that in the final spiking as each bloAv was 
struck the telegraph recorded it at each connected office from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific. Prayer was offered, a number of spikes w r ere 
driven in the two adjoining rails, each one of the prominent persons 
present taking a hand, but very feAv hitting the spikes, to the great 
amusement of the crowd. When the last spike Avas placed, light taps 
Avere given upon it by several officials, and it Avas finally driven home 
by the chief engineer of the Union Pacific Railway. The engineers 
ran up their locomotives until they touched, the engineer upon each 

24 





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How We Built The Union Pacific. 


engine breaking a bottle of champagne upon the other one, and thus 
the two roads were wedded into one great trunk line from the At¬ 
lantic to the Pacific. Spikes of silver and gold were brought specially 
for the occasion, and later were manufactured into miniature spikes 
as mementos of the occasion. It was a bright but cold day. After 
a few speeches we all took refuge in the Central Pacific cars, where 
wine flowed freely, and many speeches were made. 

Telegrams were sent to President Grant, Vice-President Colfax, 
and other officials throughout the country. I did not fail to send a 
message to my old commander, who had been such a helpful factor in 
the building of the road, and I received this message in response: 

Washington, May 11, 186f). 

Gen. G. M. Dodge: In common with millions, I sat yesterday and heard the 
mystic taps of the telegraph battery announce the nailing of the last spike in 
the great Pacific road. Indeed, am I its friend? Yea. Yet, am I to be a part 
of it, for as early as 1S54 I was vice-president of the effort begun in San Fran¬ 
cisco under the contract of Robinson, Seymour & Co. As soon as General 
Thomas makes certain preliminary inspections in his new command on the 
Pacific, I will go out, and, I need not say, will have different facilities from 
that of 1846, when the only way to California was by sail around Cape Horn, 
taking our ships 196 days. All honor to you, to Durant, to Jack and Dan Case¬ 
ment, to Reed, and the thousands of brave fellows who have wrought out this 
glorious problem, spite of changes, storms, and even doubts of the incredulous, 
and all the obstacles you have now happily surmounted. 

W. T. Sherman, General. 

That night the visitors started east and west, leaving the engi¬ 
neers and working parties to arrange the details for conducting the 
business of each road at this terminal. It was only a day or two 
before trains bound for the Atlantic and Pacific were passing 
regularly. 

During the building of the road from Sherman west, many ques¬ 
tions arose in relation to the location, construction, the grades and 
curvatures of the work. All through I stood firmly for my line, for 
what I considered was a commercially economical line for the com¬ 
pany, and for what I thought we ought to build under the speci¬ 
fications of the Government. News of the contest between the 
company and the contractors reached Washington through the gov¬ 
ernment commissioners. Generals Grant and Sherman were much 
interested, and in 1868 they came West with a party consisting of 
Maj. Gen. Philip IT. Sheridan, Gen. August Kautz, Gen. Joseph C. 
Potter, Gen. Frederick Dent, Gen. William S. Harney, Gen. Louis 
C. Hunt, Gen. Adam Slemmer, Sidney Dillon, and T. C. Durant, 
who wired me to meet them at Fort Sanders, then the headquarters 
of General Gibbon. The questions in dispute between myself and 
the contractors were then taken up, and Generals Grant and Slier- 


25 



How We Built The Union Pacific , 


man took decided grounds in the matter, supporting me fully, so 
that I had no further trouble. A view of this gathering of officers 
was caught by a local photographer who happened to be at the post, 
and is reproduced here. Probably no more noted military gathering 
has occurred since the civil war. 

Two changes were made by the contractors in the line so as to 
cheapen the work, and this was at the expense of the commercial 
value of the property. This was always opposed by the division 
engineer who located the line, and he was supported, by the chief 
engineer. The changes were always made when the chief engineer 
was absent. The company would agree to a change, and the work 
on the changes would be so far advanced that it was too late to rec¬ 
tify the matter when the chief engineer returned. The first change 
Avas of Mr. James A. Evans’s location on the eastern slope of the 
Black Hills from Cheyenne to Sherman. Evans had a 90-foot 
equated grade with a G° maximum curvature. It was a very fine 
location, and the amount of curvature was remarkably small for a 
mountain line. It rose 90 feet to the mile in a steady climb. Col. 
Silas Seymour, the consulting engineer, undertook to reduce this 
grade to 80 feet, but increased the curvature so much that an engine 
would haul more cars over Evans’s 90-foot grade than on Seymour’s 
80-foot grade, but Seymour was obliged, when he reached the foot 
of the mountains, to put in a 90-foot grade to save work as he dropped 
off the foothills to the plains, and a portion of this grade remains 
to-day. When Evans took up the change in his report and compared 
it with his line, he made it so plain that the change was wrong that 
the government directors adopted it for their report. 

The next change was from Laramie River to Rattlesnake Hills, 
or Carbon Summit. The original line ran north of Cooper Lake, 
and O’Neil, who had instructions to locate on that line, changed it, 
by order of .Col. Silas Seymour, consulting engineer, to a line drop¬ 
ping into the valleys of Rock Creek and Medicine Bow River, to save 
work. This increased the length of the line 20 miles and caused 
the report that we were making the road crooked to gain mileage 
and secure $48,000 per mile of the bonded subsidy. The amount of 
grading on this line was about one-half of that on the original line. 
During 1903 and 1904, in bringing the Union Pacific line down to a 
maximum grade of 47 feet to the mile, except over the Wasatch 
Range and Black Hills, the company abandoned this principal 
change made by the consulting engineer, and built on or near my 
original location, saving about 20 miles in distance. It was this 
change that brought Generals Grant and Sherman to see me and 
insist on my remaining as chief engineer. At the time this change 
was made the chief engineer was in Salt Lake, and did not know of 

2G 





TEMPORARY TRESTLE, PROMONTORY, UTAH. 









How We Built The Union Pacific. 


it until it was practically graded. He entered his protest and noti¬ 
fied the company that he would not submit to such changes without 
being consulted. 

I remember that the progress of the work was then such that 
Generals Grant and Sherman were very enthusiastic over the belief 
that we would soon reach the summit of the Wasatch Mountains, but 
I could not convince them that a junction of the two roads was in 
sight within a year. When you consider that not a mile of this di¬ 
vision of the road had been located on April 1, 1868; that not a mile 
of this work had been opened; that we covered in that year over 700 
miles of road and built 555 and laid 589 miles of track, bringing all 
of our material from the Missouri River, it is no wonder that Generals 
Grant and Sherman could not understand how the problem before us 
would be so speedily solved. As each 100 miles of road was com¬ 
pleted there came a general acclaim from all parts of the country to 
our great encouragement, while from our chiefs in New York there 
was a continual pressure for speed, they giving us unlimited means 
and allowing us to stretch our forces out hundreds of miles, no 
matter what additional cost it made to each mile Of road. Then we 
had the sympathy of the whole Mormon Church with us, President 
Young giving the matter personal attention, and seeing that the line 
over the Wasatch Mountains down the canyon and westward was 
covered by Mormons, to whom we let contracts, and we had the 
additional incentive that the Central Pacific was coming east nearly 
as fast as we were going west. 

We had only one controversy with the Mormons, who had been 
our friends and had given the full support of the church from the 
time of our first reconnoissances until the final completion. It was 
our desire and the demand of the Mormons that we should build 
through Salt Lake City, and we bent all our energies to find a feasible 
line passing through that city and around the south end of Great 
Salt Lake and across the desert to Humboldt Wells, a controlling 
point in the line. We found the line so superior on the north of the 
lake that we had to adopt that route with a view of building a branch 
to Salt Lake City, but Brigham Young would not have this, and 
appealed over my head to the board of directors, who referred the 
question to the government directors, who fully sustained me. Then 
Brigham Young gave his allegiance and aid to the Central Pacific, 
hoping to bring them around the south end of the lake and force us 
to connect with them there. He even went so far as to deliver in the 
tabernacle a great sermon denouncing me, and stating a road could 
not be built or run without the aid of the Mormons. When the Cen¬ 
tral Pacific engineers made their survey they, too, were forced to 
adopt a line north of the lake. Then President Young returned to 



How We Built The Union Pacific. 


his first love, the Union Pacific, and turned all his forces and aid 
to that road. 

During the building of the road the question of bridging the Mis¬ 
souri River was under discussion, and continuous examinations of the 
river in sounding, watching currents, etc., was had. Three points 
were finally determined upon as most feasible. First, Childs Mill, 
which was a high bridge, the shortest, and reached Muddy Creek 
with a 35-foot grade, avoiding the heavy 66-foot grade at Omaha; 
second, Telegraph Pole, right where there was some rock bottom, 
this to be a low drawbridge; and third, The M. & M. crossing for 
a high bridge. The latter was decided upon more especially to meet 
the views of Omaha, and for aid that city gave the company. We 
began work on the bridge in 1868, and continued it in 1869 and 1870, 
but the company found it impossible to continue, as they had no 
funds, and they could not issue any securities under their charter to 
pay for the work. I was very anxious the bridge should be built to 
utilize the thousand acres of land I had bought for our terminals in 
Iowa, and to fix permanently and practically the terminus in Iowa. 
The company proposed to me to organize a bridge company to inter¬ 
est the Iowa roads terminating at Council Bluffs, and ask authority 
from the Government to construct the bridge and issue securities 
upon it, the Union Pacific agreeing to use the bridge and make its 
terminals and connections with the Iowa roads on the Iowa side. I 
incorporated the Council Bluffs Railway and Missouri Bridge Com¬ 
pany, and went before Congress for permission to bridge the Missouri 
River at the M. & M. crossing. I saw all the Iowa roads. They 
agreed to give their aid, but made the condition that their connection 
with the Union Pacific should be on the Iowa side. I went to Wash¬ 
ington, presented the bill, passed it through the House, and left it in 
Senator Harlan’s hands to pass it in the Senate. This was very 
quietly done, but Omaha got alarmed, and Governor Saunders, who 
was a personal friend of Senator Ilarlan, took the matter up, and, I 
think, went to Washington. The Omaha people interested themselves 
in stirring up opposition in Council Bluffs. A public meeting was 
held at the corner of Broadway and Pearl streets, over which Mr. 
J. W. Crawford presided. I was very seriously criticised and the 
independent bridge scheme denounced, the contention being that the 
bridge should be a part of the Union Pacific, although it was entirely 
and solely in the interests of Council Bluffs, and would have brought 
the terminus and business of the Union Pacific to the Bluffs, as they 
had entered into an agreement with the Iowa roads to that effect. 
The public meeting was addressed in favor of the bridge by Messrs. 
Pusey, Officer, and myself, also Mr. Caleb Baldwin and others, and 
was opposed by Messrs. James Montgomery, Larimer, and others. 

28 




How We Built The Union Pacific. 


The meeting passed resolutions asking our Senators to defeat the 
bridge bill. Senator Harlan acted on this resolution and defeated the 
bill in the Senate, and Saunders and Omaha accomplished their work. 
The Union Pacific Company was greatly disgusted and disappointed, 
and dropped for the time all efforts to build a bridge. If the bill 
had passed the bridge would have been built in the interests of Coun¬ 
cil Bluffs and the Iowa roads. The Union Pacific later on applied to 
Congress, which passed a bill authorizing the Union Pacific to build 
a bridge, issue bonds and stock upon it, the interest upon them to be 
paid from the revenue of the bridge, and placed it entirely in their 
control, but the Union Pacific had no great interest in coming to 
Council Bluffs or Iowa, and made their terminus at Omaha, and 
forced the Iowa roads over the bridge until 1875, when the United 
States Supreme Court decided that the Union Pacific should be 
operated from Council Bluffs westward as a continuous line for all 
purposes of communication, travel, and transportation, and especially 
ordered them to start all through passenger and freight trains west¬ 
ward-bound from the Bluffs. This came too late to cure the mischief 
the town meeting had accomplished, as the Union Pacific had its in¬ 
terests centered in Omaha, its offices located there, and the Iowa roads 
had made their contracts and gone there, and the Bluffs has only 
reaped the benefit of its terminal that the growth of business has 
forced to them, whereas by law, by economy of operation, and by 
the ample terminals made to accommodate it, it should have been the 
actual terminus, and should have received full benefit of it, not only 
from traffic of the Union Pacific, but from the traffic and interest of 
the Iowa roads. The Union Pacific completed the first bridge cross¬ 
ing the Missouri River and opened it for traffic on March 22, 1872. 

One of the most difficult problems we had to solve was to keep 
sufficient material at the terminals to supply the daily demand. This 
work fell to Webster Snyder and his assistant, H. M. Hoxie, who 
had charge of the operation of the completed road. They were 
both young men in the business then, but have been at the head of 
great corporations since. They performed their work successfully 
and with ability. Hoxie said to me once, in answer to a question: 

We do not take our hand off the throttle night or day until we know the front 
is supplied. 

The operating department also had the Indians to contend with. 
An illustration of this came to me after our track had passed Plum 
Creek, 200 miles west of the Missouri River. The Indians had cap¬ 
tured a freight train and were in possession of it and its crews. It 
so happened that I was coming down from the front with my car, 
which was a traveling arsenal. At Plum Creek station word came of 


29 



How We Built The Union Paeific. 


this capture and stopped us. On my train were perhaps 20 men, 
some a portion of the crew, some who had been discharged and sought 
passage to the rear. Nearly all were strangers to me. The excite¬ 
ment of the capture and the reports coming by telegraph of the 
burning of the train brought all men to the platform, and when I 
called upon them to fall in, to go forward and retake the train, every 
man on the train went into line, and by his position showed that he 
was a soldier. We ran down slowly until we came in sight of the 
train. I gave the order to deploy as skirmishers, and at the com¬ 
mand they went forward as steadily and in as good order as we had 
seen the old soldiers climb the face of Kenesaw under fire. 

Nearly all the engineers and chiefs of the different units of the 
construction of the line have risen to distinction in their profession 
since the road was built. The chiefs of the parties were S. B. Reed, 
F. M. Case, James A. Evans, Percy T. Brown, L. L. Hills (the two 
latter killed by the Indians), J. E. House, M. F. Hurd, Thomas H. 
Bates, F. C. Hodges, James R. Maxwell, John O’Neil, Francis E. 
Appleton, Col. J. O. Hudnut, J. F. McCabe, Mr. Morris, and Jacob 
Blickensderfer. 

Our principal geologist was David Van Lennep, whose reports 
upon the geology of the country from the Missouri River to the 
Pacific have been remarkably verified in later and more detailed 
examinations. 

The superintendents of construction were S. B. Reed and James 
A. Evans, both of whom had been connected with the road since 
1864. They had independent and thorough organizations. Mr. S. B. 
Reed was a very competent engineer and had had large experience 
in his profession. He was very successful in utilizing the Mormons 
in his work west of the Green River. Mr. Reed and Mr. Hurd after¬ 
wards made some of the most difficult locations over the mountain 
ranges for the Canadian Pacific. 

Mr. Reed’s principal assistant was M. F. Hurd, who served in the 
Second Iowa Infantry during the civil war. I detailed him on my 
staff as an engineer, and, although a private, he won distinction in 
all the campaigns for his ability, nerve, bravery, and modesty. On 
the Union Pacific, as well as other transcontinental lines with which 
he has been connected, he has performed some remarkable engineer¬ 
ing work. He has had to fight many times for the lives of himself 
and party, and, no matter what odds have been against him, he has 
never failed to maintain his position and win his battles, though at 
times the chances looked desperate. 


30 






S. B. REED. 

Superintendent of Construction, Union Pacific Railway 
















I 






















































GENERAL J. S. CASEMENT. 

Casement Brothers laid all the track and did a large part of the grading of the Union Paci 


fic Railway. 





How JVe Built The Union Pacific. 


The track laying on the Union Pacific was a science. Mr. AY. A. 
Pell, in an article on the Pacific Railroads, describes, after witness¬ 
ing it, as follows: 


We, pundits of the far East, stood upon that embankment, only about a thou¬ 
sand miles this side of sunset, and backed westward before that hurrying corps 
ot sturdy operators with a mingled feeling of amusement, curiosity, and pro¬ 
found respect. On they came. A light car, drawn by a single horse, gallops up 
to the front with its load of rails. Two men seize the end of a rail and start 
forward, the rest of the gang taking hold by twos, until it is clear of the car. 
They come forward at a run. At the word of command the rail is dropped in 
its place, right side up with care, while the same process goes on at the 
other side of the car. Less than thirty seconds to a rail for each gang, and so 
four rails go down to the minute. Quick work, you say, but the fellows on the 
Union Pacific are tremendously in earnest. The moment the car is empty it 
is tipped over on the side of the track to let the next loaded car pass it, and 
then it is tipped back again; and it is a sight to see it go flying back for another 
load, propelled by a horse at full gallop at the end of 60 or SO feet of rope, rid¬ 
den by a young Jehu, who drives furiously. Close behind the first gang come 
the gaugers, spikers, and bolters, and a lively time they make of it. It is a 
grand *‘ anvil chorus ” that those sturdy sledges are playing across the plains. 
It is in a triple time, three strokes to the spike. There are 10 spikes to a rail, 
100 rails to a mile, 1,800 miles to San Francisco—21,000,000 times are those 
sledges to be swung; 21,000,000 times are they to come down with their sharp 
punctuation before the great work of modern America is complete. 


The entire track and a large part of the grading on the Union 
Pacific Railway was done by the Casement Brothers—Gen. Jack Case¬ 
ment arid Dan Casement. General Casement had been a prominent 
brigade and division commander in the western army. Their force 
consisted of 100 teams and 1,000 men, living at the end of the track 
in boarding cars and tents, and moved forward with it every few 
days. It was the best organized, best equipped, and best disciplined 
track force I have ever seen. I think every chief of the different 
units of the force had been an officer of the army, and entered on 
this work the moment they were mustered out. They could lay from 
1 to 3 miles of track per day, as they had material, and one day laid 
8A miles. Their rapidity in track laying, as far as I know, has never 
been excelled. I used it several times as a fighting force, and it took 
no longer to put it into fighting line than it did to form it for its daily 
work. They not only had to lay and surface the track, but had to 
brimr forward to the front from each base all the material and sup- 
plies for the track and for all workmen in advance of the track. 
Bases were organized for the delivery of material generally from 
100 to 200 miles apart, according to the facilities for operation. 
These bases were as follows: First, Fremont; second, Fort Kearney; 
third, North Platte; fourth, Julesburg; fifth, Sidney; sixth, Chey¬ 
enne; seventh, Laramie; eighth, Benton (the last crossing of the 


31 





How We Built The Union Pacific. 


North Platte); ninth, Green River; tenth, Evanston; eleventh, 
Ogden; and, finally, Promontory. 

At these bases large towns were established, which moved forward 
with the bases, and many miles of sidings were put in for switching 
purposes, unloading tracks, etc. At these prominent points I have 
seen as many as a thousand teams waiting for their loads to haul 
forward to the front for the railway force, the Government, and for 
the limited population then living in that country. I have seen 
these terminal towns starting first with a few hundred people until 
at Cheyenne, at the base of the mountains, where we wintered in 
1867-68, there were 10,000 people. From that point they decreased 
until at Green River there were not over 1,000. After we crossed the 
first range of mountains we moved our bases so rapidly they could not 
afford to move with us. 

In 1865 Oakes and Oliver Ames, of Boston, became interested in 
the enterprise, bringing their own fortune and a very large follow¬ 
ing, and really gave the first impetus to the building of the road. 
There was no man connected with it who devoted his time and money 
with the single purpose of benefit to the country and Government 
more than Oakes Ames, and there was never a more unjust, uncalled 
for, and ungrateful act of Congress than that which censured him 
for inducing, as it is claimed, Members of Congress to take interest 
in the construction company. When they took it there was no neces¬ 
sity for the company having influence in Congress, for there was 
nothing we could ask that Congress did not give, and it certainly 
never occurred to him that he might secure benefits from their votes. 
Now that the Government has been paid every dollar that it in¬ 
vested, with interest, it is time that the Congress of the United States 
should wipe that unjust act from its record. 

The instructions given me by Oliver Ames, the president of the 
company, were invariably to obtain the best line the country afforded, 
regardless of the expense. Oakes Ames once wrote me, when it 
seemed almost impossible to raise money to meet our expenditures: 

Go ahead; the work shall not stop, even if it takes the shovel shop. 

The Ameses were manufacturers of shovels and tools, and their 
fortunes were invested in that business; and, as we all know, the 
shovel shop went. When the day came that the business of the 
Ameses should go or the Union Pacific, Oakes Ames said: 

Save the credit of the road; I will fail. 

It took a man of courage and patriotism to make that decision 
and lay down a reputation and business credit that was invaluable 
in New England, and one that had come down through almost a 
century. To him it was worse than death; and it was the blow 

32 



IIow We Built The Union Pacific. 


given by the action of Congress which, followed by others, put him 
in his grave. 

In February, 1875, Mr. Jay Gould, who had become heavily inter¬ 
ested in the Union Pacific Railway, in connection with Messrs. 
Ames, Dillon, and the board of directors, conceived a plan of paying 
to the Government in addition to the sum it was then receiving from 
the company a sum of money each year that should be used as a sink¬ 
ing fund, which, at the maturity of the government bond, would 
liquidate that indebtedness. The Hon. James F. Wilson, of Iowa, 
a government director, and myself were selected to go to Washington 
to present the matter to the Government. General Grant was then 
President, and Gen. Benjamin F. Bristow Secretary of the Treasury. 
We presented the proposition to General Grant, who looked upon it 
favorably and referred it to the Secretary of the Treasury for the 
purpose of’ having a bill drawn which would carry out our views. 
The entire Cabinet was in favor of the proposition with the single 
exception of Mr. Jewell, of Connecticut. Upon the report of General 
Bristow, General Grant drafted a message to the Congress of the 
United States, recommending the passage of an act that would carry 
out this plan. 

In the meantime rumors of what we were doing had reached New 
York, where there was a large short interest in the stock of the Union 
Pacific. This interest immediately gathered its forces and influence 
and sent persons to Washington to represent to the President that the 
proposed action of the Union Pacific was a mere stock-jobbing scheme 
for the purpose of twisting the shorts on Union Pacific stock, and 
their representations made such an impression on General Grant that 
he never sent his message in, and the company, receiving the treat¬ 
ment it did, then abandoned for the time all efforts to make a settle¬ 
ment with the Government. General Grant often said to me in later 
years that he regretted he did not settle the matter at that time. This 
demonstrates that at the moment the Union Pacific began to be pros¬ 
perous the men who put their money in it and built it made the first 
effort to pay the debt due the Government at or before its maturity. 
If their offer had been accepted the earnings of the company demon¬ 
strated that they would have been able to have met their agreement, 
and at the maturity of the debt it would have been paid. This is one 
of the many instances in which the Union Pacific Railway has en¬ 
deavored to fulfill, not only in letter, but in spirit, every obligation 
it owed to the Government, and I undertake to say that the Govern¬ 
ment of the United States, from the time the road was finally com¬ 
pleted and in continuous operation, has never fulfilled any one of its 
obligations to the company, except the simple giving of its credit at 
the time of the building by the issue of its bonds. 

S. Doc. 447, 61-2—10-3 33 



How We Built The Union Pacific. 


How well our work was performed is shown by the reports of the 
distinguished commissions appointed by the Government to examine 
the road during its construction and after its completion. 

.'Commissioners Horace Walbridge, S. M. Felton, C. B. Comstock, 
E. F. Winslow, and J. F. Boyd examined the road in 1869 to ascer¬ 
tain the sum of money that was necessary to complete the road under 
the government specifications, and the sum found necessary on the 
Union Pacific was $1,586,100, and on the Central Pacific $576,650. 
The amount required on the Union Pacific was only about one-half 
as much as the chief engineer of that road had found necessary to 
complete the road under the company’s own specifications, and the 
company not only spent this, but a much larger sum in the work. 

The last commission, composed of Maj. Gen. G. K. Warren, U. S. 
Army; J. Blickensderfer, jr., and James Barnes, civil engineers, con¬ 
cluded their report in part, as follows: 

The foregoing shows that the location of the Union Pacific Railway is in 
accordance with the law, and as a whole and in its different parts the most 
direct, central, and practicable that would be found from Omaha to the head 
of Great Salt Lake. Taken as a whole, the Union Pacific Railway has been well 
constructed. The energy and perseverance with which the work has been urged 
forward, and the rapidity with which it has been executed, was without parallel 
in history. In grandeur and magnitude of the undertaking it has never been 
equaled, and the country has reason to congratulate itself upon this great work 
of national importance so rapidly approaching completion under such favorable 
auspices. 

When the Canadian government determined to build a Pacific 
railway, they had the Union Pacific examined, and after that exami¬ 
nation they provided in their contracts that the Canadian Pacific 
should be built upon the Union Pacific standards, and when com¬ 
pleted should be in its location and construction equal to it, thus pay¬ 
ing a high compliment to the builders of the Union Pacific, and after 
the completion of the Canadian Pacific Kailway, engineers of the 
Union Pacific were selected to examine that road to determine if its 
construction was up to the standard required. 

The Blickensderfer and Clement report made a comparative analy¬ 
sis of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific, their location, construc¬ 
tion, grade, curvature, etc., giving to the Union Pacific credit for 
being superior in most of these matters. The last and most critical 
examination of the location, grades, etc., came within the last three 
years, when under the reorganized company it was determined to re¬ 
duce the grades to a maximum of 47 feet going east or west except 
at two points, the 80-foot grade at Cheyenne going west, and the 80- 
foot grade at the head of Echo Canyon going east. 

The president of the Union Pacific, Mr. E. H. Harriman, at a ban¬ 
quet in Denver in 1904 stated that after the three years’ examination, 

34 




Ilow We Built The Union Pacific. 


and the expenditure of $15,000,000 to $20,000,000 to change the grades 
to a maximum of 47 feet to the mile, it had been demonstrated that 
not a mile of road had been built to increase the distance and obtain 
subsidies; that the location and construction was a credit to the engi¬ 
neers and executive officers who built the road. 

Mr. J. B. Berry, chief engineer of the Union Pacific Railroad, who 
had charge of the changes, pays this tribute to the engineers of the 
road: 

It may appear to those unfamiliar with the character of the country that the 
great saving in distance and reduction of grade would stand as a criticism of 
the work of the pioneer engineers who made the original location of the road. 
Such is not the case. The changes made have been expensive and could be war¬ 
ranted only by the volume of traffic handled at the present day. Too much 
credit can not be given Gen. G. M. Dodge and his assistants. They studied their 
task thoroughly and performed it well. Limited by law to a maximum gradient 
of 116 feet to the mile, not compensated for curvature, they held it down to 
about 90 feet per mile. Taking into consideration the existing conditions thirty- 
five years ago. lack of maps of the country, hostility of the Indians, which made 
United States troops necessary for protection of surveying parties, difficult 
transportation, excessive cost of labor, uncertainty as to probable volume of 
traffic, limited amount of money and necessity to get the road built as soon as 
possible, it can be said, with all our present knowledge of the topography of the 
country, that the line was located with very great skill. 

The principal changes made by the Union Pacific Railroad since 
1900 was, first, the change from the Muddy Creek line out of Omaha 
to the original Dey line, now known as the Lane cut-otf, which saves 
11 miles in 14 miles distance. The next is the line from Sherman to 
the Laramie plains, where by long tunnels and heavy work the 
grade is reduced from 90 feet to 47 feet maximum. The third change 
is the Cooper Lake line, which is changed from Rock Creek and 
Medicine Bow to near the original location of the Union Pacific, with 
a saving of 20 miles in distance. This is the change made when the 
line was building by the contractors against the protest of the chief 
engineer of the road and caused Generals Grant and Sherman to come 
to Fort Sanders for a conference. The fourth change was on the Cen¬ 
tral Pacific road from Ogden across Bear Creek, arm of Salt Lake, 
known as Lucien cut-off, saving 50 miles in distance and avoiding 
the heavy grades over Promontory Point. The original survey of the 
Union Pacific was from Ogden across Bear Creek, arm of Salt Lake, 
to south end of Promontory Point, but, as stated in another part of 
this paper, was abandoned because of the 12 feet of higher water in 
the lake in 1869, when the line was built, than in 1900, when the 
change was made. I understand the lake has been rising about 1 foot 
a year since this cut-off was completed. In a letter which I received 


35 




How We Built The Union Pacific. 


from Mr. James R. Maxwell, assistant engineer, he makes the follow¬ 
ing statement of the result of their survey in 1867: 

The boat we used in sounding the lake was made of inch boards and not 
calked very well, and the heavy water soon shook the calking out of the bottom, 
and it did seem for a short time that we would have to take to the water. 
That was on our way back from Promontory Point to Mud Island. After we 
landed the topographer told me that he could not swim; if I had known that he 
would not have been on the boat. When I found 22 feet of water where Captain 
Stansbury had only 10 I knew that that line was not feasible then. I was told 
by a Mormon bishop that on two occasions the annual rise was 6 feet above any 
previous record and that it remained so, covering thousands of acres of farming 
land at northeastern side of the lake. 

This part of the lake that was sounded by this party was east of 
Promontory Point. The water to the west of Promontory Point 
being twice as deep as that toward the east, therefore it was impos¬ 
sible for us with our means to build a railroad across the lake and we 
were forced around the north end of the lake and over Promontory 
Point. 

The first surveys of the Union Pacific Railway were made in the 
fall of 1853. The first grading was done in the fall of 1864. The 
first rail was laid in July, 1865. Two hundred and sixty miles were 
built in 1866, 240 in 1867, including the ascent of the first range of 
mountains to an elevation of 8,235 feet above sea level, and from 
April 1, 1868, to May 10, 1869, 555 miles of road was built, all ex¬ 
clusive of temporary track and sidings, of which over 180 miles was 
built in addition, all at an approximate cost in cash of about 
$54,000,000. 

Of late years there has been a great deal of criticism and com¬ 
parison of the building of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific 
railroads, favoring the latter. The theory is that because the Cen¬ 
tral Pacific had the Sierra Nevada Range to tackle at first, it was 
a more difficult problem financially and physically to handle than 
the Union Pacific end, but this is a very great mistake. The Union 
Pacific had to bring all of its material, ties, bridging, etc., from tide 
water by rail or by river. They had to build the first 630 miles 
without any material on its line to aid them except the earth, and for 
this they only received $16,000 per mile in government bonds. There 
was no settlement on the line to create any traffic or earnings along 
the whole distance, which was very difficult in appealing to the people 
to buy the bonds and furnish money for the company. In compari¬ 
son to this, the Central Pacific started at Sacramento with a tide¬ 
water base coming right up to it, so that all the material that had to 
come from foreign or domestic ports had the cheapest rates by sea. 
Then from Sacramento they had built over the mountains to Vir¬ 
ginia City to the great Bonanza mines at Virginia City, which gave 

36 





How We Built The Union Pacific. 


them a large traffic at high rates, and gave them very large earnings. 
Then, again, only a few miles east of Sacramento, the east base of 
the Sierra Nevada Range commences, and they received immediately 
$48,000 in government bonds per mile for the 150 miles, and $32,000 
in government bonds from there on to Salt Lake, a distance of barely 
200 miles, more than the 630 miles that the Union Pacific had to 
build on $16,000 per mile. This favorable condition for the Central 
Pacific was such that the representatives of that road had very little 
difficulty in raising all the money they needed and having for nearly 
one-half of their road a fine traffic to help pay the interest on their 
bonds. 

I do not speak of this in criticism of the work of the Central Pa¬ 
cific, which was remarkable, and like that of the Union Pacific, has 
never been excelled, but only in comparison of the difficulties the 
two companies had to overcome. I am not surprised that some of 
the public should take this view of the matter when the later litera¬ 
ture of the Union Pacific seems to take the same view and devote 
what praise it has to the work of the men who built the Central 
Pacific, overlooking almost entirely the struggles of those who ini¬ 
tiated the work on the line of the Union Pacific and who furnished 
the funds to explore the country and determine the feasibility of 
the route and stood by it for nearly twelve years before the Central 
Pacific was thought of. The fact is, the Central Pacific obtained no 
right and did not think of going east of the California state line 
until after the laws of 1865 and 1866 had been enacted, which gave 
them the right to come east of the state line of California and made 
them a part of the transcontinental line. 

The operation of the road the first winter, 1869-70, gave us a test 
of what we might expect from the snow. In building the road, we 
studied the mountains to get our lines upon the slopes that were the 
least exposed to heavy snows and slides, but we had no means of 
fighting the snows in the Laramie Plains except by fences and sheds, 
and none were put up until the year 1870, so that when the heavy 
snows fell in the winter of 1869-70 it caught six of our trains west 
of Laramie that were snowed in there some weeks. As a precaution 
in starting our trains from Omaha, we put on a box car with a stove 
in it and loaded with provisions, so as to meet any emergency. These 
six trains that were caught in the snow between Laramie and the 
divide of the continent had these supplies and also were supplied 
with sledges and snowshoes from Laramie. They had with them, 
in charge of the six trains, Mr. H. M. Hoxie, the assistant superin¬ 
tendent, who managed to get the trains together, but the blizzards 
were so many and so fierce that it was impossible for men to work 
out in the open, and even when they cleared the cuts ahead they 

37 



How We Built The Union Pacific. 


would fill up before they could get the trains through them. Prob¬ 
ably that winter’s experience with snow was the worst the Union 
Pacific has ever experienced, but Mr. Hoxie handled his forces with 
great ability and fed and entertained his passengers in good shape. 
In one train was an opera company bound for California that Mr. 
Hoxie used to entertain the passengers with, so that when the trains 
reached Salt Lake City the passengers held a meeting and passed 
resolutions complimentary to Mr. Hoxie and the Union Pacific in 
bringing them safely through. A photograph of the trains was 
taken at the time they were snowed in near Cooper Lake, and a print 
of it is here reproduced. 

I can not conclude this description of the building of the Union 
Pacific Railway better than quoting my conclusions, as stated in my 
final report, sent to the company and the United States Government 
on December 1, 1869. It is as follows: 

“ In 1853 Henry Farnam and T. C. Durant, the then contractors 
and builders of the Missouri River Railroad in Iowa, instructed Peter 
A. Dey to investigate the question of the proper point for the Mis¬ 
sissippi and Missouri River road to strike the Missouri River to obtain 
a good connection with any road that might be built across the conti¬ 
nent. I was assigned to the duty, and surveys were accordingly ex¬ 
tended to and up the Platte Valley, to ascertain whether any road 
built on the central or then northern line would, from the formation 
of the country, follow the Platte and its tributaries over the plains, 
and thus overcome the Rocky Mountains. Subsequently, under the 
patronage of Mr. Farnam, I extended the examination westward to 
the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains and beyond, examining the 
practicable passes from the Sangre Christo to the South Pass; made 
maps of the country, and developed it as thoroughly as could be 
done without making purely instrumental surveys. The practicabil¬ 
ity of the route, the singular formation of the country between Long’s 
Peak, the Medicine Bow Mountains, and Bridger Pass, on the south, 
and Laramie Peak and the Sweetwater and Wind River ranges on 
the north, demonstrated to me that through this region the road must 
eventually be built. I reported the facts to Mr. Farnam, and through 
his and his friends’ efforts, the prospect for a Pacific railroad began 
to take shape. 

“ In after years, when the war demonstrated the road to be a mili¬ 
tary necessity, and the Government gave its aid in such munificent 
grants, surveys were extended through the country previously ex¬ 
plored, its resources developed, its hidden treasures brought to light, 
and its capabilities for the building of a railway to the Pacific fully 
demonstrated. 


38 




SIX PASSENGER TRAINS SNOWED IN ON THE LARAMIE PLAINS. 

Union Pacific Railway, winter of 1869-70. 






























How We Built The Union Pacific. 


“ In doing this over the country extending from the Missouri River 
to the California state line, and covering a width of 200 miles, north 
and south, and on the general direction of the forty-second parallel 
of latitude, some 15,000 miles of instrumental lines have been run, 
and over 25,000 miles of reconnoissances made. 

“ In 1863 and 1864, surveys were inaugurated, but in 1866 the 
country was systematically occupied; and day and night, summer and 
winter, the explorations were pushed forward through dangers and 
hardships that very few at this day appreciate, for every mile had 
to be run within range of the musket, as there was not a moment’s 
security. In making the surveys numbers of our men, some of them 
the ablest and most promising, were killed; and during the construc¬ 
tion our stock was run off by the hundred, I might say, by the thou¬ 
sand, and as one difficulty after another arose and was overcome, both 
in the engineering and running and constructing departments, a new 
era in railroad building was inaugurated. 

“ Each day taught us lessons by which we profited for the next, 
and our advances and improvements in the art of railway construc¬ 
tion were marked by the progress of the work, 40 miles of track 
having been laid in 1865, 260 in 1866, 240 in 1867, including the ascent 
to the summit of the Rocky Mountains, at an elevation of 8,235 feet 
above the ocean; and during 1868, and to May 10, 1869, 555 miles, all 
exclusive of side and temporary tracks, of which over 180 miles were 
built in addition. 

“ The first grading was done in the autumn of 1864, and the first 
rail laid in July, 1865. When you look back to the beginning at the 
Missouri River, with no railway communication from the East, and 
500 miles of the country in advance without timber, fuel, or any mate¬ 
rial whatever from which to build or maintain a road, except the sand 
for the bare roadbed itself, with everything to be transported, and 
that by teams or at best by steamboats, for hundreds and thousands of 
miles; everything to be created, with labor scarce and high, you can 
all look back upon the work with satisfaction and ask, Under such 
circumstances could we have done more or better ? 

“ The country is evidently satisfied that you accomplished wonders, 
and have achieved a work that will be a monument to your energy, 
your ability, and to your devotion to the enterprise through all its 
gloomy as well as its bright periods, for it is notorious that notwith¬ 
standing the aid of the Government there was so little faith in the 
enterprise that its dark days—when your private fortunes and your 
all was staked on the success of the project—far exceeded those of 
sunshine, faith, and confidence. 

“ This lack of confidence in the project, even in the West, in those 
localities where the benefits of its construction were manifest, was 


39 



How We Built The TJnion Pacific. 


excessive, and it will be remembered that laborers even demanded 
their pay before they would perform their day’s work, so little faith 
had they in the payment of their wages, or in the ability of the com¬ 
pany to succeed in their efforts. Probably no enterprise in the world 
has been so maligned, misrepresented, and criticised as this; but now, 
after the calm judgment of the American people is brought to bear 
upon it, unprejudiced and unbiased, it is almost without exception 
pronounced the best new road in the United States. 

“ Its location has been critically examined, and although the route 
was in a comparatively short time determined upon, as compared with 
that devoted to other similar projects, yet, in regard to the correct¬ 
ness of the general route, no question is ever raised; and even in the 
details of its location, 730 miles of which were done in less than six 
months, it has received the praise of some of the ablest engineers of 
the country. Its defects are minor ones, easily remedied, and all the 
various commissions, some of them composed of able and noted engi¬ 
neers, have given the company due credit in this particular, although 
they may have attacked it in others, and to-day, as in the past, the 
company need fear no fair, impartial criticism upon it or no exam¬ 
ination made by men of ability and integrity or such as are masters 
of their profession. 

“ That it yet needs work to finally complete it no one denies, but 
whatever is necessary has been or is being done. 

“ Its future is fraught with great good. It will develop a waste, 
will bind together the two extremes of the nation as one, will stimu¬ 
late intercourse and trade and bring harmony, prosperity, and wealth 
to the two coasts. A proper policy, systematically and persistently 
followed, will bring to the road the trade of the two oceans, and will 
give it all the business it can accommodate, while the local trade will 
increase gradually until the mining, grazing, and agricultural regions 
through which it passes will build up and create a business that will 
be a lasting and permanent support to the country.” 


40 







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fi 

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'« -'*» ■ • 


v 

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/•' *,+ '«■' 
. 4 $ 


V 

V. 


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CITY OF ROCKS. 

Northwest of Salt Lake, on Union Pacific Railway survey to Oregon, 1808. 









ADDRESS AT THE OMAHA CENTENNIAL. 


I have been asked to give ten minutes to the construction of the 
Union Pacific Railway. Private enterprise made the explorations, 
determined the line, and built the Union Pacific Railway. Although 
the Government spent an immense sum in surveying three other 
routes it did not touch the most feasible route, that of the forty-second 
parallel. 

In 1852 Farnam and Durant were building the Mississippi and 
Misouri road, now the Rock Island. They desired to end that line of 
the Missouri River wdiere the Pacific Railroad, following the conti¬ 
nent forty-second parallel of latitude, would commence. Under the 
direction of Peter A. Dey, who was then the chief engineer of that 
line, I made the first survey across the State of Iowa, and the first 
reconnoissances and surveys on the Union Pacific for the purpose of 
determining where the one would end and the other commence, on the 
Missouri River. I crossed the Missouri River in the fall of 1853 and 
made our explorations west to the Platte Valley and up it far enough 
to determine that it would be the route of the Pacific road. 

The party that I crossed the Missouri River with had never come 
in contact with the Indians. We were tenderfeet, and the Omahas 
were very free with what we had until I had to use drastic measures 
to stop them. I went on to the Elkhorn River ahead of my party. 
They stole my horse, but I got him back, so that our initiation into 
Nebraska was not a very creditable one. 

I continued these reconnoissances from 1853 on and off until 1861 
under the private patronage of Mr. Henry Farnam, and we also dur¬ 
ing that time commenced work on the M. & M. road in Council Bluffs 
and graded it several miles east, fixing its location permanently on 
the Missouri River. The reconnoissances made by me during all this 
time, with the information that I obtained from the Mormons and 
the fur traders and travelers through the country, determined the 
general route of the Union Pacific road as far west as Salt Lake, and 
virtually beyond that to the California state line. 

In 1862 the Union Pacific Railway was organized at Chicago, and 
soon after Mr. Peter A. Dey continued the explorations, and in 1863 
he placed parties over the Black Hills and in Salt Lake and over the 
Wasatch in Utah. In 1863 I was on duty at Corinth, when I was 
called to Washington by Mr. Lincoln, who had met me in 1859 at 


41 



IIow We Built The Union Pacific. 


Council Bluffs and had questioned me very systematically as to the 
knowledge I had of the western country and the explorations I had 
made there. Remembering this, he called me to Washington to con¬ 
sult with me as to where the eastern terminus of the Union Pacific 
Railway should be. I explained to him what my surveys had deter¬ 
mined, and he fixed the initial point of the Union Pacific, as you all 
know, on the western line of Iowa opposite this city. At this inter¬ 
view with Mr. Lincoln he was very anxious to have the road con¬ 
structed. It was my opinion then that it could not be constructed 
unless it was built by the Government, and I so informed Mr. Lincoln. 
He said that the United States had at that time all it could handle, 
but it was ready to make any concession and obtain any legislation 
that private parties who would undertake the work would require. 

I then went to New York City and met Mr. Durant and others con¬ 
nected with the Union Pacific and informed them of what Mr. Lin¬ 
coln had said. It gave them new hope and they immediately formu¬ 
lated the amendments to the law of 18G2, which was passed in 1864 
and enabled them to push the work. 

The ground was broken here in Omaha in December of 1868, and 
in 1864 about $500,000 was spent in surveying and construction, and 
in 1865 40 miles of road was completed to Fremont. Mr. Dey, who 
had charge of the work up to this time as chief engineer, resigned, 
and stated in his letter that he was giving up the best position in his 
profession this country had ever offered to any man. 

In May, 1866, I resigned from the army, came to Omaha and took 
charge of the work as chief engineer, and covered the line with engi¬ 
neering parties from Omaha to California, and pushed our location 
up the Platte Valley. 

In 1866 we built 260 miles. In the winter of 1866 we planned to 
build the next year 288 miles to Fort Sanders. As our work had to 
all be done under the protection of the military, I was continually 
in communication with General Sherman, who was then the com¬ 
mander of this department, and confidentially gave him our plans as 
fast as they were settled upon. 

In January, 1867, I wrote him a letter, showing him what we pro¬ 
posed to do in that year, and he answered it from St. Louis on Jan¬ 
uary, 1867, saying: 

I have just read with intense interest your letter of the 14th. Although you 
wanted me to keep it to myself, I believe you will sanction my sending it to 
General Grant for his individual perusal, to be returned to me. It is almost a 
miracle to grasp your proposition to finish to Fort Sanders this year, but you 
have done so much that I mistrust my own judgment and accept yours. 

During 1867 we reached the summit of the Black Hills and win¬ 
tered at Cheyenne, where the population of nearly 10,000 gathered 
around us. 


42 



Address At The Omaha Centennial. 


In November, 186T, the Northwestern Railway was completed at 
Council Bluffs. Up to this time the amount of road we built each 
year was limited to the material that we could bring up the Missouri 
River on steamboats during about three months’ navigation. Reach¬ 
ing the Black Hills also took us into the timber country, where we 
could obtain ties within 25 or 50 miles from the line. It was then 
planned, during the winter of 1867, to build as far west as possible, 
and we laid out plans to reach Ogden, giving us 500 or more miles to 
build. In estimating the extra cost of building this 500 miles, which 
crossed two ranges of mountains, w r ithin a year, I informed the com¬ 
pany that it would be at least ten millions of dollars. Their answer 
was to go ahead, no matter what it cost. 

During the winter of 1867 we accumulated at Cheyenne all the 
material possible, having the Northwestern to bring it to us, and we 
made every preparation to start our work by the 1st of April. When 
you consider that material for a mile of road required 40 cars, besides 
the necessary cars for supplies and for the population that was along 
the line of the road, you can imagine what it was to supply the ma¬ 
terial at the end of the line, which, on an average, had to be about 
800 miles, but Snyder and Hoxie, of the operating department, 
grasped the situation and solved the problem. We reached Ogden in 
the spring of 1869, and Promontory Point on May 10, 1869. During 
the winter of ’68 the grading was done over the Wasatch Moun¬ 
tains, and the earth was blasted there the same as rock. Our track 
was laid on icy banks. I saw one of the construction trains slide off 
of the bank bodily into the ditch, loaded with material. 

From the 1st day of April, 1868, until May 10, 1869, only thirteen 
months, we built and laid track of 555 miles of road and graded the 
line to Humboldt Wells, making the total distance covered by our 
force 726 miles, and transported all the material and supplies from 
the Missouri River. When you consider that not a mile of this di¬ 
vision of the road had been located until April, that we covered in 
that year over 700 miles of road, bringing all the material from the 
Missouri River, that we had to overcome its two great physical obsta¬ 
cles, two ranges of mountains, it was a task never equaled then nor 
surpassed since. It could not have been accomplished had it not been 
for the experience of the chiefs of the departments in the civil war. 

The commission appointed by the Government to examine the 
work says: 

Taken as a whole, the Union Pacific Railway has been well constructed. The 
energy and perseverance with which the work has been urged forward and the 
rapidity with which it has been executed was without parallel in history. In 
grandeur and magnitude of the undertaking, it has never been equaled. 


43 




How We Built The Union Pacific . 


It is impossible for me in the short time I have to speak individ¬ 
ually of the persons who took a prominent part in the construction 
of the line, but they entered into the work all with one spirit. They 
worked from daylight till dark, and when necessary on Sundays, and 
it was an esprit de corps and a determination from the head to the 
foot of everyone to accomplish the task set before them. 

The Indians were very hostile, often attacking us. I lost two of 
my chiefs and many of the men and any quantity of stock. That 
failed to stop us, but if it had not been for the cordial support of 
Generals Grant and Sherman and the officers of the army along our 
lines we would not have succeeded. 

When our track was finished to Promontory, there assembled there 
the officials from the east and from the west. The engineers of the 
two lines ran their locomotives together, each breaking a bottle of 
champagne upon the other’s engine, and when the last spike was 
driven and the telegraph ticked all over the world the completion 
of the first transcontinental line across our Continent, I did not 
forget to telegraph to my old chief, General Sherman, who had taken 
such a great interest in the work, and received from him this dispatch : 

In common with millions, I sat yesterday and heard the mystic taps of the 
telegraphic battery announce the nailing of the last spike in the great Pacific 
road. Indeed, am I its friend? Yea. l T et am I a part of it, for as early as 
1854 I was vice-president of the effort begun in San Francisco under the con¬ 
tract of Robinson, Seymour & Co. As soon as General Thomas makes certain 
preliminary inspections in his new command on the Pacific, I will go out, and, 
I need not say, will have different facilities from that of 1846, when the only 
way to California was by sail around Cape Horn, taking our ships 196 days. 
All honor to you, to Durant, and Jack and Dan Casement, to Reed, and the 
thousands of brave fellows who have wrought out this glorious problem, in spite 
of changes, storms, and even doubts of the incredulous, and all the obstacles 
you have now happily surmounted. 

W. T. Sherman, General. 

The rapidity of the building of the Union Pacific Railway caused 
many comments and often assertions that the road was not thor¬ 
oughly built, that to make distance and thereby receive more bonds 
we unnecessarily increased the length of the road; that to save work 
we often used the maximum grade, and other and similar criticisms. 
The best answer to that has been made in the last three years. The 
Union Pacific Railway, under a very able engineer, Mr. Berry, has 
been engaged in reducing the grades of the road, except over the two 
mountain ranges, to a maximum of 47 feet per mile. It has decreased 
the curvature and shortened the line about 37 miles. To obtain this 
it has cost the Union Pacific Railroad Company nearly one-third 
the total cash cost of building the road. Mr. Berry, in his report 


44 



Address At The Omaha Centennial . 


upon these changes, pays this high compliment to those connected 
with the location and construction of the road: 

It may appear to those unfamiliar with the character of the country that the 
great saving in distance and reduction of grade would stand as a criticism of 
the work of the pioneer' engineers who made the original location of the rail¬ 
road. Such is not the case. The changes made have been expensive, and could 
be warranted only by the volume of traffic handled at the present day. Too 
much credit can not be given Gen. G. M. Dodge and his assistants. They 
studied their task thoroughly and performed it well. Limited by law to a 
maximum gradient of 116 feet to the mile, not compensated for curvature, they 
held it down to about 90 feet per mile. Taking into consideration the exist¬ 
ing conditions thirty-five years ago, lack of maps of the country, hostility of 
the Indians, which made United States troops necessary for protection of sur¬ 
veying parties, difficult transportation, excessive cost of labor, uncertainty as to 
probable volume of traffic, limited amount of money, and necessity to get road 
built soou as possible, it can be said with all our present knowledge of the 
topography of the country that the line was located with very great skill. 


45 
















. 




■ 


































































































































































































On Union Pacific Railway survey to Portland, Oregon, 1808. 











THE BUILDING OF THE UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD 
AND ITS RELATION TO COUNCIL BLUFFS 
AND WESTERN IOWA. 


To give the early history of the Union Pacific Railway and its 
relations to Council Bluffs and western Iowa necessitates the recital 
of the first railway surveys in Iowa. 

In 1852 the M. & M., now the Council Bluffs, Rock Island and 
Pacific Railway, was chartered in the interest and as an extension 
of the Chicago and Rock Island Railway, which was completed that 
year to the Mississippi River at Rock Island. 

In May, 1858, Peter A. Dev left the Rock Island, of which he was 
a division engineer, stationed at Tiskilwa, and commenced at Daven¬ 
port, Iowa, the first survey of a railroad line across the State of 
Iowa. I had been with Mr. Dey about eight months, as rod man, 
and under his direction had made a survey of the Peoria and Bureau 
Valley Railway in Illinois. Mr. Dey w r as made chief engineer of 
the M. & M., and took me to Iowa as assistant, and placed me in 
charge of the party in the field—certainly a very fine promotion for 
the limited experience I had had—and it is one of the greatest satis¬ 
factions and pleasures of my life to have had his friendship from 
the time I entered his service until now. Mr. Dey is not only a very 
distinguished citizen of Iow T a, but is one of the most distinguished 
engineers of the country. lie was known for his great ability, his 
uprightness, and the square deal he gave every one, and he has 
greatly honored this State in the many public positions he has held. 
I look back upon my services with him with the greatest pleasure. 
My practical experience under him and the confidence he placed in 
me were of incalculable benefit to me, and the example he set us has 
lasted me through my life, and I shall always honor, respect, and 
hold him in the highest consideration and friendship. 

We completed a survey and location to Iow T a City in August, 1853. 
Early in September we commenced the survey across Iowa, passing 
through Marengo, Newton, Des Moines, and reaching Council Bluffs 
December 1, 1853, this being the first railway survey across the State. 
Now commenced our first reconnoissances for the Union Pacific Rail¬ 
way. We crossed the river by flat-boat and extended our lines west to 


47 



IIow We Built The Union Pacific. 


the Platte Valley, and determined definitely the feasibility of a con¬ 
nection with the great Platte route with roads in Iowa terminating at 
or near Council Bluffs. It is a singular fact that the Government 
in 1853 authorized the exploration of the country west of the Mis¬ 
souri River to the Pacific on four different routes, but made no men¬ 
tion of the most feasible route, and the one that w'as first built upon, 
known as the forty-second parallel or Great Platte route. A w T ell- 
defined trail of this route was first made by the buffalo and the 
Indians, followed by the fur traders and trappers, then used by the 
Mormons to Salt Lake. Following them came the great overland 
emigration to California and Oregon, and on this trail and road, or 
close to them, was built the Union Pacific and Central Pacific to 
California, and the Short Line branch of the Union Pacific to 
Oregon. 

In our surveys to the Missouri River, Cook and Sargent, who were 
representatives of the M. & M. Railway in Iow T a, held large interests 
at Florence, Nebr., and were anxious that our line should terminate 
on the Missouri River opposite that point. It was also stated that 
the Missouri River at that point had rock bottom. To solve this 
question we ran two lines, one down Pigeon Creek and one down 
Mosquito, and as the latter was superior in an engineering point of 
view, Mr. Dey adopted that line. There was considerable opposi¬ 
tion to it, but his recommendation stood. The question of terminus 
w r as so often discussed, and as the Bluffs people felt so uncertain as 
to the final result, they proposed that Pottawattamie County should 
vote $300,000 in bonds in aid of the road if the company would com¬ 
mence work at the Bluffs, make it the terminus and spend that money 
in building east through Pottawattamie County. This proposition 
was submitted to Messrs. Farnam and Durant, and accepted. The 
bonds were voted and the money raised, and it was spent in grading 
a portion of the road in Pottawattamie County, but the failure of 
the M. & M. Company in 1857 stopped work here, as well as on the 
rest of the line in the State. The Rock Island, the successor of the 
M. & M., occupied the line graded in this county when it was built. 

In the fall of 1854 wrnrk was suspended on the M. & M. road in 
Iowa, and I moved to the Bluffs, and under the patronage of Henry 
Farnam continued the explorations west for the Union Pacific by 
getting all the information I could from the Indians and fur traders 
and Mormons of the country we were finally to occupy, until the 
general route of the Union Pacific to the Pacific Ocean was pretty 
fully settled in our own minds. 

There was keen competition in the fifties for the control of the 
vast immigration crossing the plains, and Kansas City, Fort Leaven¬ 
worth, St. Joe, and Council Bluffs were points of concentration on 


48 



Its Relation To Council Bluffs And Western Iowa . 


the Missouri River. The trails from all these points led to and con¬ 
verged in the Platte Valley at Kearney and east of it. A southern 
trail led from Kansas City up the Arkansas to New Mexico and on 
to the Pacific by the southern route, but was not much traveled west 
of New Mexico. 

From my explorations and the information I had obtained I 
mapped and made an itinerary of the whole Platte Valley route to 
Utah, California, and Oregon, giving the camping places for each 
night, showing where wood, grass, and water could be found, point¬ 
ing out where the fords of the different streams could be found, and 
giving such other information as would be valuable to immigrants. 
The interests centering around Council Bluffs printed this map and 
itinerary and sent it broadcast through the Western States, and it 
had no small influence in turning the mass of overland immigration 
to the Great Platte route. This route was up that river to its forks, 
and then either up the north or south fork to Salt Lake, thence to 
California by the Humboldt and Truckee valleys, branching at 
South Pass or Fort Bridger to Snake River and by that and the 
Columbia River valleys to Oregon. 

Both Mr. Dey and myself returned to Iowa City during the sum¬ 
mer of 1856 to continue the construction of the M. & M. road, and 
made everything ready for the work, when the panic of 185T involved 
Mr. Farnam financially, caused by Mr. Durant pledging the paper 
of the firm of Durant & Farnam to meet his speculative ventures. 
This involved Mr. Farnam’s collateral in litigation, which it took 
several years to unravel, and Mr. Durant’s connection with the M. & M. 
contract was fatal to the early completion of that line of railway, 
and Mr. Farnam took no further interest in the project. 

I returned to Council Bluffs and continued my examinations until 
1861. I remember that in 1859, when I returned from a trip on the 
plains, I met Mr. Lincoln at the Pacific House. Mr. Lincoln came up 
from St. Joseph on a steamer to look after an interest he had bought 
in the Riddle tract from N. B. Judd, of Chicago. He also found here 
and visited some old Springfield (Ill.) friends, W. H. M. Pusey, 
Thomas Officer, and others. Mr. Lincoln sought me out, and was 
greatly interested in the project of the Pacific Railroad, and I gave 
him all the information I had, going fully and thoroughly into it. I 
was very decided that the Great Platte route was, from our explora¬ 
tions and surveys, the best, most feasible, and far superior to any of 
the routes explored by the Government. 

In 1836 the first public meeting to consider the project of a Pacific 
railway was called by John Plumbe, a civil engineer of Dubuque, 
Iowa. Interest in a Pacific railway grew from this time, the explora¬ 
tion of Fremont in 1842 and 1846 brought the attention of Congress, 
S. Doc. 447, 61-2—10-4 49 




How We Built The Union Pacific. 


and A. C. Whitney was zealous and efficient in the cause from 1840 
to 1850. The first practical measure was Senator Salmon P. Chase’s 
bill in 1853, making an appropriation for the explorations of differ¬ 
ent routes for a Pacific railway. Numerous bills were introduced in 
Congress between 1852 and 1860, granting subsidies and lands, and 
some of them appropriating as large a sum as $96,000,000 for the con¬ 
struction of the road. One of these bills passed one of the houses of 
Congress. 

The results of the explorations ordered by Congress were printed 
in eleven large volumes covering the country between the thirty- 
second and forty-ninth parallels of latitude, and demonstrated the 
feasibility of building a Pacific railway, but at a cost on any one of 
the lines much larger than the Union Pacific and Central Pacific 
were built for. It is a singular fact that in all these explorations the 
most feasible line in an engineering and commercial point of view, 
the line with the least obstacles to overcome, of lowest grades and 
least curvature, was never explored and reported on. Private enter¬ 
prise explored and developed that line along the forty-second parallel 
of latitude. 

In 1861 Gen. S. R. Curtis, of Iowa, reported for the Pacific Rail¬ 
way Committee of Congress the first Pacific railroad act, and Senator 
Harlan, of Iowa, finally succeeded in making it a law; and in March, 
1862, the company was organized. On September 2, 1862, Henry 
B. Ogden, of Chicago, was made president, Thomas M. Olcott, vice- 
president, and H. Y. Poor, secretary. In August, 1863, T. C. Durant 
sent Peter A. Dey to examine the passes over the Black Hills and 
Wasatch Range. 

On October 30, 1863, Mr. Durant, in his report to the board, stated 
that the explorations formerly made by Gen. G. M. Dodge and those 
made by Mr. Dey proved of great value. Mr. Dey at this meeting 
submitted the report of his reconnoissances, and the company placed 
him in charge of all the surveys, with instructions to develop the 
line through to Salt Lake City. Mr. Dey took into the field parties 
headed by B. B. Bray ton, S. B. Reed, F. M. Case, Joseph A. Young, 
son of President Brigham Young, and soon determined that the 
general route we had originally reported upon was the one to be built 
upon. 

The law of 1862 did not bring the results hoped for. No money 
could be raised under its provisions, and the only result was the series 
of explorations made in 1863, and the breaking of ground at Omaha 
on December 21 of that year. 

In 1863, I think about June, while in command at Corinth, Miss., 
I received an order to report in Washington, and was informed that 
the President wished to see me. I had no idea what the President 

50 



Its Relation To Council Bluffs And Western Iowa. 


could wish to see me about—in fact, was a good deal puzzled at the 
order. When I reached Washington and called on the President, I 
found that he desired to consult me upon the proper place for the 
initial point of the Union Pacific, and that he had not forgotten his 
conversation with me in 1859. 

The towns on the Missouri River within a distance of 100 miles 
of the mouth of the Platte River were using their influence to have 
the terminus made at each one of their places, but it was evident that 
Mr. Lincoln had determined upon some point north of the mouth of 
the Platte River so that great valley could be utilized for the route 
of the railroad. After his interview with me, in which he showed a 
perfect knowledge of the question, and satisfying himself as to the 
engineering questions that had been raised, I was satisfied he would 
locate the terminus at or near Council Bluffs. He issued his first 
order on November 17, 1863. It was in his own language, and as 
follows: 

I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby fix so much 
of the western boundary of the State of Iowa as lies between the north and 
south boundaries of the United States township within which the city of Omaha 
is situated as the point from which the line of railroad and telegraph in that 
section mentioned shall be constructed. 

This description was not considered definite enough by the com¬ 
pany, and on March 7, 1864, President Lincoln issued the second 
executive order, as follows: 

I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do, upon the application 
of said company, designate and establish such first-named point on the western 
boundary of the State of Iowa east of and opposite to the east line of section 
10, in township 15, south of range 13, east of the sixth principal meridian in 
the Territory of Nebraska. 

On March 8, 1864, he notified the United States Senate that on the 
17th day of November, 1863, he had located the “ eastern terminus 
of the Union Pacific Railway within the limits of the township in 
Iowa opposite to the town of Omaha.” “Since then,” he says, “the 
company has represented to me that upon added survey made it has 
determined upon the precise point of departure of the branch road 
from the Missouri River, and located same within the limits desig¬ 
nated in the order of November last.” 

Mr. Lincoln also took up with me the construction of the road. I 
expressed opinion that no private enterprise could build it, and that 
it must be done b}^ the Government. He answered that the Govern¬ 
ment had its hands full in the war, but was willing to support any 
company to the full extent of its power. After saying good-bye to 
the President, I went immediately to New York and saw Messrs. 
Durant, Cisco, and others then connected with the company and re- 


51 




How We Built The Union Pacific. 


ported to them Mr. Lincoln’s words. It gave new courage to the 
company. The law of 1864 was passed, and Mr. Dey let the first con¬ 
tracts, and grading was started in the fall of 1864. 

After the location of the road at Council Bluffs, the first serious 
question threatening Council Bluffs was the change of Mr. Dey’s line 
from Omaha to Elkhorn, adding 9 miles in distance, claiming to 
avoid heavy work and heavy grades. Many saw in this change, 
advocated by Colonel Seymour, the consulting engineer, and Mr. 
Durant, the vice-president of the Union Pacific, an intention of util¬ 
izing Bellevue instead of the Bluffs as the real terminus of the road, 
and this aroused not only Omaha, but the Bluffs with all the influence 
of Iowa against such a result. 

The main argument for adding 9 miles of distance in 13 miles of 
road was that it eliminated the 80 and 66 foot grades of the direct 
line. If this had been done there would have been some argument for 
the changes, but they only eliminated the grades from the Omaha 
summit, which it took 3 miles of 60 and 66 foot grades to reach, and 
east of the Elkhorn summit, which was an 80-foot grade, so by the 
change and addition of 9 miles they made no reductions in the 
original grades or in the tonnage hauled in a train on the new line 
over the old line if it had been built. 

The grades at Omaha and Elkhorn have been eliminated since 1900, 
and the new management is adopting the old Dey line for the distance 
it saves and in bringing the grade to the road’s maximum of 47 feet to 
the mile. It was Mr. Dey’s intention that, when traffic demanded the 
original short line, grades would be reduced to whatever maximum 
grade the road should finally adopt. 

After a long contest and many reports the Government provided 
that the change should only be made if the Omaha and Elkhorn 
grades were eliminated, the first by a line running south from Omaha 
2 miles in the Missouri Valley and cutting through the Bluffs to 
Muddy Creek, giving a 35-foot maximum grade, and the Elkhorn, by 
additional cutting and filling without changing the line; but this was 
never done. The company paid no attention to the decision, but built 
on the changed line, letting the grades at Omaha and Elkhorn stand, 
and the government commissioners accepted the road, ignoring the 
conditions of the change, and bonds were issued upon it, although it 
was a direct violation of the government order. 

The final decision in favor of the change, and the ignoring of Mr. 
Dey’s recommendations in letting the construction contracts, caused 
Mr. Dey to send in his resignation. He stated in his letter of resig¬ 
nation that he was giving up “ the best position in his profession this 
country has offered to any man.” 


52 




Its Relation To Council Bluffs And Western Iowa. 


During the building of the road the question of bridging the Mis¬ 
souri River was under discussion, and continuous examinations of the 
river in sounding, watching currents, etc., was had. Three points 
were finally determined upon as most feasible. First, Child’s Mill, 
which was a high bridge, the shortest, and reached Muddy Creek with 
35-foot grade, avoiding the heavy 66-foot grade at Omaha. Second, 
Telegraph Pole, right where there was some rock bottom; this to be a 
low drawbridge, and third, the M. & M. crossing for a high bridge. 
The latter was decided upon, more especially to meet the views of 
Omaha and for aid that city gave the company. 

We began work on the bridge in 1868 and continued it in 1869 and 
1870, but the company found it impossible to continue, as they had 
no funds and they could not issue any securities under their charter 
to pay for the work. I was very anxious the bridge should be built 
to utilize the thousand acres of land I had bought for our terminals 
in Iowa and to fix permanently and practically the terminus in Iowa. 
The company proposed to me to organize a bridge company, to inter¬ 
est the Iowa roads terminating at the Bluffs, and ask authority from 
the Government to construct the bridge and issue securities upon it, 
the Union Pacific agreeing to use the bridge and make its terminals 
and connections with the Iowa roads on the Iowa side. 

I saw all the Iowa roads. They agreed to give their aid, but made 
the condition that their connection with the Union Pacific should be 
on the Iowa side. I went to Washington, presented the bill, passed 
it through the House, and left it in Senator Harlan’s hands to pass it 
in the Senate. This was very quietly done, but Omaha got alarmed; 
and Governor Saunders, who was a personal friend of Senator 
Harlan, took the matter up, and, I think, went to Washington. The 
Omaha people interested themselves in stirring up opposition in the 
Bluffs. 

A public meeting was held at the corner of Broadway and Pearl 
streets, over which J. W. Crawford presided. I was very seriously 
criticised and the bridge scheme denounced, although it was entirely 
and solely in the interest of Council Bluffs and would have brought 
the terminus and business of the Union Pacific to the Bluffs, as they 
had entered into an agreement with the Iowa roads to that effect. 

The public meeting was addressed in favor of the bridge by Messrs. 
Pusey, Officer, and myself, also by Caleb Baldwin, and was opposed 
by Messrs. James, Larimer, Montgomery, and others. The meeting 
passed resolutions asking our Senators to defeat the bridge bill. 
Harlan acted on this resolution and defeated the bill in the Senate- 
and Saunders and Omaha accomplished their work. 

The Union Pacific Company was greatly disgusted and disap¬ 
pointed, and dropped for the time all efforts to build a bridge. If 


53 



How We Built The Union Pacific. 


the bill had passed, the bridge would have been built in the interests 
of Council Bluffs and the Iowa roads. The Union Pacific later, on 
applied to Congress, which passed a bill authorizing the Union Pa¬ 
cific to build a bridge, issue bonds and stock upon it, and placed it 
entirely in their control; but the Union Pacific had no great interest 
in coming to Council Bluffs or Iowa and made their terminus at 
Omaha and forced the Iowa roads over the bridge until 1875, when 
the United States Supreme Court decided that the Union Pacific 
should be operated from Council Bluffs westward as a continuous 
line for all purposes of communication, travel, and transportation, 
and especially ordered them to start all through passenger and freight 
trains westward from the Bluffs. 

This came too late to cure the mischief the town meeting had ac¬ 
complished, as the Union Pacific had its interests centered in Omaha, 
and its offices, and the Iowa roads had made their contracts and 
gone there, and the Bluffs had only reaped the benefit of its terminal 
that the growth of business has forced to them, whereas, by law, by 
economy of operation, and by the ample terminals made to accommo¬ 
date it, it should have been the actual terminus, and should have 
received full benefit of it, not only from traffic of the Union Pacific, 
but from the traffic and interest of the Iowa roads. 

The points I have mentioned are the principal ones in the building 
of the Union Pacific that interest Council Bluffs. There were others, 
but my article is already too long. The building of the Union Pacific 
was of incalculable benefit to the Bluffs and Iowa. General Sherman 
said it advanced our country one hundred years. The rapidity of 
building was a factor. Forty miles of track was laid in 1865, 260 
miles in 1866, 246 in 1867, including the ascent to the summit of the 
Black Hills at Sherman, 8,255 feet above the sea, and during 1868 
and to May, 1869, 555 miles, all exclusive of 186 miles of sidings and 
all from one end, a task never before or since equaled. 


54 











































































































































1 




































JOINING OF TRACKS, PROMONTORY, UTAH. 

Scene when the last spike holding the rails joining the Union Pacific and Central Pacific was driven 











FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF DRIVING OF THE LAST 
SPIKE ON THE UNION PACIFIC AND CENTRAL 
PACIFIC RAILWAY. 


The building of a Pacific steam road to connect the streams flow¬ 
ing into the Atlantic and Pacific was advocated as early as 1819, 
before a mile of railroad was built in any part of the world. It 
took practical form when Asa Whitney, in 1845, in petitioning Con¬ 
gress in behalf of a Pacific railroad, said: “ YY>u will see that it will 
change the whole world.” Senator Thomas H. Benton in 1849 
pleaded that the great line when built should “ be adorned with its 
crowming honor, the colossal statue of the great Columbus, whose 
design it accomplishes, hewn from the granite mass of a peak of the 
Rocky Mountains, overlooking the road, the mountain itself the 
pedestal, and the statue a part of the mountain, pointing with out¬ 
stretched arm to the western horizon, and saying to the flying pas¬ 
senger, 4 There is the East! There is India !’ ” Charles Sumner in 
1853 said: 

The railroad from the Atlantic to the Pacific, traversing a whole continent 
and binding together two oceans, this mighty thoroughfare when completed will 
mark an epoch of human progress second only to that of our Declaration of 
Independence. May the day soon come! 

And it did come, and all the prophecies were fulfilled when the 
first transcontinental line was completed and the tracks joined at 
Promontory Point, Utah, on May 10, 1869, just forty years ago. 

This ceremony was one of peace and harmony between the Union 
Pacific, coming from the east, and the Central Pacific, coming from 
the west. For a year or more there had been great contention and 
rivalry between the two companies, the Union Pacific endeavoring to 
reach Humboldt Wells, on the west boundary of Utah, and the Cen¬ 
tral Pacific rushing to reach Ogden, Utah, to give them an outlet to 
Salt Lake City. 

In the building of a Pacific steam road to connect the two oceans 
two lines were graded alongside of each other for 225 miles between 
Ogden and Humboldt Wells. Climbing Promontory Mountain, they 
were not a stone’s throw- apart. 

When both companies saw that neither could reach its goal they 
came together and we made an agreement to join the tracks on the 
summit of Promontory Mountain, the Union Pacific selling to the 


55 



IIow We Built The Union Pacific. 


Central Pacific 56 miles of its road back within 5 miles of Ogden and 
leasing trackage over that 5 miles to enable the Central Pacific to 
reach Ogden. These 5 miles were not onty a part of the Union 
Pacific, but used by their line north to Idaho. This agreement was 
ratified by Congress. Each road built to the summit of Promontory, 
leaving a gap of about 100 feet of rail to be laid when the last spike 
was driven. The chief engineers of the Union and Central Pacific 
had charge of the ceremony and the work, and we set a day far 
enough ahead so that trains coming from New York to San Fran¬ 
cisco would have ample time to reach Promontory in time to take 
part in the ceremonies. 

On the morning of May 10, 1869, TIon. Leland Stanford, governor 
of California and president of the Central Pacific, accompanied by 
Messrs. Huntington, Hopkins, Crocker, and trainloads of California’s 
distinguished citizens, arrived from the west. During the forenoon 
Vice-President T. C. Durant and Directors John R. Duff and Sidney 
Dillon and Consulting Engineer Silas A. Seymour, of the Union 
Pacific, with other prominent men, including a delegation of Mor¬ 
mons from Salt Lake City, came in on a train from the east. The 
National Government was represented by a detachment of “regulars” 
from Fort Douglass, Utah, accompanied by a band, and 600 others, 
including Chinese, Mexicans, Indians, half-breeds, negroes, and la¬ 
borers, suggesting an air of cosmopolitanism, all gathered around 
the open space where the tracks were to be joined. The Chinese 
laid the rails from the west end and the Irish laborers laid them 
from the east end, until they met and joined. 

Telegraphic wires were so connected that each blow of the descend¬ 
ing sledge could be reported instantly to all parts of the United 
States. Corresponding blows were struck on the bell of the city 
hall in San Francisco, and with the last blow of the sledge a cannon 
was fired at Fort Point. General Safford presented a spike of gold, 
silver, and iron as the offering of the Territory of Arizona. Gov¬ 
ernor Tuttle, of Nevada, presented a spike of silver from his State. 
The connecting tie was of California laurel, and California pre¬ 
sented the last spike of gold in behalf of that State. A silver sledge 
had also been presented for the occasion. A prayer was offered. 
Governor Stanford, of California, made a few appropriate remarks 
on behalf of the Central Pacific and the chief engineer responded 
for the Union Pacific. Then the telegraphic inquiry from the Omaha 
office, from which the circuit was to be started, was answered: 

To everybody: Keep quiet. When the last spike is driven at Promontory 
Point we will say “ Done.” Don’t break the circuit, but watch for the signals 
of the blows of the hammer. The spike will soon be driven. The signal will 
be three dots for the commencement of the blows. 


56 










THE LOCOMOTIVES TOUCHED NOSES. 

The engineers of the two locomotives each broke a bottle of champagne on the other’s engine. 













Driving The Last Spike On The Union Pacific. 


The magnet tapped one—two—three—then paused—“ Done.” The 
spike was given its first blow by President Stanford and Vice-Presi¬ 
dent Durant followed. Neither hit the spike the first time, but hit 
the rail, and were greeted by the lusty cheers of the onlookers, accom¬ 
panied by the screams of the locomotives and the music of the mili¬ 
tary band. Many other spikes were driven on the last rail by some 
of the distinguished persons present, but it was seldom that they first 
hit the spike. The original spike, after being tapped by the officials 
of the companies, was driven home by the chief engineers of the two 
roads. Then the two trains were run together, the two locomotives 
touching at the point of junction, and the engineers of the two loco¬ 
motives each broke a bottle of champagne on the other’s engine. 
Then it was declared that the connection was made, and the Atlantic 
and Pacific were joined together, never to be parted. 

The wires in every direction were hot with congratulatory tele¬ 
grams. President Grant and Vice-President Colfax were the recip¬ 
ients of especially felicitous messages. On the evening of May 8, in 
San Francisco, from the stages of the theaters and other public places, 
notice was given that the two roads had met and were to be wedded 
on the morrow. The celebration there began at once and practically 
lasted through the 10th. The booming of cannons and the ringing of 
bells were united with other species of noise making of which jubilant 
humanity finds expression for its feelings on such an occasion. The 
buildings in the city were gay with flags and bunting. Business was 
suspended and the longest procession that San Francisco had ever 
seen attested the enthusiasm of the people. At night the city was 
brilliant with illuminations. Free railway trains filled Sacramento 
with an unwonted crowd, and the din of cannon, steam whistles, and 
bells followed the final message. 

At the eastern terminus in Omaha the firing of a hundred guns on 
Capitol Hill, more bells and steam whistles, and a grand procession of 
fire companies, civic societies, citizens, and visiting delegations echoed 
the sentiments of the Californians. In Chicago a procession of 4 
miles in length, a lavish display of decoration in the city and on the 
vessels in the river, and an address by Vice-President Colfax in the 
evening were the evidences of the city’s feeling. In New York, by 
order of the mayor, a salute of a hundred guns announced the cul¬ 
mination of the great undertaking. In Trinity Church the Te Deum 
was chanted, prayers were offered, and when the services were over 
the chimes rang out “Old Hundred,” the “Ascension Carol,” and 
national airs. The ringing of bells on Independence Hall and the 
fire stations in Philadelphia produced an unusual concourse of citizens 
to celebrate the national event. In the other large cities of the coun¬ 
try the expressions of public gratification were hardly less hearty 

57 



Bow We Built The Union Pacific 


and demonstrative. Bret Harte was inspired to write the celebrated 
poem of “ What the Engines Said.” The first verse is: 

What was it the engines said, 

Pilots touching, head to head, 

Facing on the single track, 

Half a world behind each back? 

This is what the engines said, 

Unreported and unread. 

Not forgetting my old commander, Gen. W. T. Sherman, who had 
been such an aid in protecting us in the building of the road, in 
answer to our telegram, sent this dispatch: 

Washington, May 11, 1869. 

Gen. G. M. Dodge: In common with millions, I sat yesterday and heard the 
mystic taps of the telegraphic battery announce the nailing of the last spike in 
the great Pacific road. Indeed, am I its friend? Yea. Yet, am I to be a part 
of it, for as early as 1854 I was vice-president of the effort begun in San Fran¬ 
cisco under the contract of Robinson, Seymour & Co. As soon as General 
Thomas makes certain preliminary inspections in his new command on the Pa¬ 
cific I will go out, and, I need not say, will have different facilities from that of 
184G, when the only way to California was by sailing around Cape Horn, taking 
our skips one hundred and ninety-six days. All honor to you, to Durant, to 
Jack, and Dan Casement, to Reed, and the thousands of brave fellows who 
have wrought out this glorious problem, spite of changes, storms, and even 
doubts of the incredulous, and all the obstacles you have happily surmounted. 

W. T. Sherman, General. 

After the ceremony a sumptuous lunch was served in President 
Stanford’s cars and appropriate speeches were made by Governor 
Stanford and others, and a general jollification was enjoyed. At 
night each train took its way to its own home, leaving at the junction 
point only the engineers and the workmen to complete the work ready 
for the through trains that followed in a day or two after. 

The one thought that was in all minds was, “ What of the future ? 
What could a railroad earn that ran almost its entire length from 
Nebraska to the California state line through a country uninhabited, 
and at that date with no developed local business upon its whole 
line?” 

My own views upon that question I expressed in my report upon 
the completion of the road, in 1869, in which I said: 

Its future is fraught with great good. It will develop a waste, will bind 
together the two extremes of the nation as one, will stimulate intercourse and 
trade, and bring harmony, prosperity, and wealth to the two coasts. A proper 
policy, systematically and persistently followed, will bring to the road the trade 
of the two oceans and will give it all the business it can accommodate; while 
the local trade will increase gradually until the mining, grazing, and agricul¬ 
tural regions through which it passes will build up and create a business that 
will be a lasting and permanent support to the company. 

As soon as the road was in operation, with regular trains, the 
company called upon me to make an estimate of the earnings of the 


58 






West of Salt Lake, line of Union Pacific Railway survey, 1868 


























































Driving The Last Spike On The-Union Pacific. 


company for the next ten years. They desired that they should 
show a sum, if possible, equal to the interest upon all the company 
bonds and provide for the government sinking fund. 

This was a problem that would have challenged the imagination 
of the greatest optimist of the time, for we had a road 1,086 miles 
in length, with few settlements upon it, and the country surrounding 
it, from our own observations, did not promise any great amount of 
railroad traffic. However, by claiming all the known traffic between 
the Atlantic and the Pacific and all the trade of foreign countries 
seeking Japan, China, and Australia by this route, we built up a 
yearly earning of $5,000 per mile, but the growth of the country even 
then distanced my imagination 100 per cent, and our yearly earnings 
in ten years rose to $10,000 or $12,000 per mile. When I look back 
upon the growth of the country west of the Missouri, now supporting 
five transcontinental lines, with all the miles of lateral roads filling 
the intermediate territory, with the traffic on the Union Pacific to¬ 
day demanding a double track over its entire length, I have not the 
ability to even guess what the future has in store. When you try 
to calculate the business that will be created by the Government’s 
conservation of the country’s resources, its millions spent impound¬ 
ing the great streams that flow east and west from the Rocky Moun¬ 
tains, the minerals hidden in every range and foothill, the agricul¬ 
tural growth from dry farming and irrigation, and the great yearly 
increase in population, and that to-day the country is comparatively 
only scratched; as it develops and grows to-day, in ten years it 
will require 50,000 additional miles of railroad to transport its people 
and its production. 

When the Union Pacific was first built, over 90 per cent of its 
traffic was through business. Now that figure is reversed and 90 per 
cent of it or more is local, and this is the case of all the transconti¬ 
nental and intermediate lines. There is an empire building up west 
of the Missouri River and on the Pacific coast from Mexico to Bering 
Strait. Already there is a development that has outstripped every 
effort to meet its demands or anticipate its necessities. To me who 
traveled over most of this country in the fifties and sixties, when its 
inhabitants were mostly Indians and its products game and grass, its 
growth I can not even comprehend, and its future no man can safely 
prophesy. 

It is a great satisfaction to have lived and witnessed the develop¬ 
ment of our nation from the Lakes to the Pacific. As a result of 
the civil war it has made a century’s growth in fifty years. 


59 


































































































. 






























MONUMENT POINT, GREAT SALT LAKE. 

The original line of the Union Pacific Railway survey crossing the lake touched this point. 





























WHAT I HAVE KNOWN OF HARRIMAN. 


While I have known Mr. Harriman many years, I have had no 
railroad or business connection with him. I severed my connection 
with the Union Pacific Railroad when it went into the hands of the 
receivers. I was a member of the first reorganization committee, 
known as the Brice committee, but it failed to accomplish anything 
from its inability to come to any understanding with the Government 
as to the payment of the government debt. 

The second reorganization committee, known as the Kuhn-Loeb 
committee, in 1897 succeeded in reorganizing the Union Pacific, and 
Mr. Harriman took an active part in the road from that time forward. 
First as a director, and after rising to the presidency, he controlled 
not only that property but from 1901 the Southern Pacific. 

His great power in argument and ability to show results and his 
management of these roads brought him to the prominent notice of 
the whole country, and the support of its great banking and financial 
interests. The development of business along the Union Pacific made 
them believe the road could pay the government debt, principal and 
interest, and they had the nerve to make that agreement with the 
Government. 

I remember when they were considering with the Government the 
payment of the subsidy debt that President McKinley sent for me to 
come to Washington, and while discussing the question with him I 
asked him if he didn’t think a monument ought to be raised by the 
Government to the men who built that road and paid the government 
debt, an unheard-of occurrence at that time. He answered, “ Yes,” 
but said, “ Don’t you think, General, a monument should also be 
raised to the President who made them do it? ” 

In the first plans of the reorganization of the Union Pacific the 
main trunk line only was included, but it was soon discovered that 
the branches, especially the Oregon Short Line, were as important 
to the success of the company as the main line, and afterwards, under 
the management of Mr. Harriman, those branches, except the Colo¬ 
rado and Southern Railway, were made a part of the system. He saw 
later on that it was a mistake even to leave out this branch. 

During the panic of 1893 the earnings of the road fell from 
$45,000,000 to $29,000,000, the net earnings from $16,000,000 to 
$4,000,000, but at the time of the reorganization the development of 
the country was such, and the growth of the business along the road 

61 



How We Built The Union Pacific. 


was so great, that the value of the property grew all the time upon 
Mr. Harriman and his associates. The one obstacle in the way of 
completing the plan they had in view Avas that the line from Ogden to 
San Francisco, known as the Central Pacific, was owned and operated 
by the Southern Pacific, then controlled by Mr. Collis P. Huntington, 
who absolutely refused to sell it. 

Upon Mr. Huntington’s death, Mr. Harriman and his associates 
in 1901 formed the plan of buying the Central Pacific from Ogden to 
San Francisco as its original charter provided, and his success in pur¬ 
chasing this property is one of the keys to the great success of the 
Union Pacfic road. To accomplish this, he had to spend a hundred 
or more millions of dollars, and buy not only the Central Pacific but 
a road reaching from San Francisco to New Orleans, and from there 
by steamboat to New York. This was not only a bold but a very 
successful financial operation. 

One person, in speaking of his great success at the time of the pur¬ 
chase of this property and the combining of it with the Union Pacific 
and other property that had been obtained, says: 

Mr. Harriman may journey by steamship from New York to New Orleans, 
thence by rail to San Francisco, across the Pacific Ocean to China, and, return¬ 
ing by another route to the United States, may go to Ogden by any one of the 
three rail lines, and tlienae to Kansas City or Omaha without leaving the deck 
or platform of a carrier which he controls, and without duplicating any part 
of his journey. 

This purchase of his was a very farsighted and, in my opinion, a 
master stroke, although at this time the Government is trying to 
divorce the two roads. This is a mistake. I can not see myself Iioav 
a railroad running from San Francisco to New Orleans is in any Avay 
competitive with a railroad running from San Francisco and Port¬ 
land to Council Bluffs. 

Mr. Harriman’s heart was wholly in his work. His efforts have 
been only to build up, not to tear down, and there are instances within 
this year where he has gone to the aid of great competitive properties 
on the principle that it was not good policy to allow any great enter¬ 
prise to fail. Though it may have been competitive with his interests, 
he did not fail to aid it with his advice, money, and credit, which, I 
think, shows that he held a very broad view, far different from the 
attitude most people take toward such questions. 

After Mr. Harriman had obtained the Union Pacific, Southern 
Pacific and all its laterals and branches, he began to make a study 
of them. He went through them from beginning to end and as the 
business of the roads grew, he saw Avhat the future for them was, and 
he told me that he spent almost as much money as the original cost of 
the road in bringing the grades of the Union Pacific, from Ogden to 


62 




What I Have Known Of Harriman . 


Cheyenne, down to 47 feet maximum (except two places), and from 
Cheyenne to Omaha down to 16 feet, and in shortening the distance 
some 30 miles. 

It is said that in developing this and the Southern Pacific roads 
and their lateral lines he has spent over $200,000,000, and it is for 
these reasons that I have said that his death is the greatest loss to the 
western country. 

It is a very fortunate thing that he has built up and organized these 
properties so completely and efficiently that it will not be difficult to 
find some one in them to take his place and carry out his plans which 
contemplate as much expenditure in the future as has been made in 
the past. 

I was much impressed as I lately came over the Union Pacific 
by what these improvements have meant to the road. I had been 
staying for two months in the mountains where other railroads cross 
them, and I'noticed that two locomotives could haul from 15 to 20 
cars only up their steep grades, while on the mountain division of the 
Union Pacific a single locomotive could haul from 35 to 45 cars, and 
from Cheyenne east they hauled 50 to 75 loaded cars. This shows 
where the great net earnings of the Union Pacific come from. 

Every piece of property that Harriman has taken an active in¬ 
terest in has immediately felt his influence and got the benefit of his 
judgment in its operations and in the increase of its earnings. He had 
a great faculty for details in these matters and seemed to know 
intuitively how to utilize, to the best advantage, the forces working 
under him. 

His men were loyal to him because he was loyal to them. He took 
a great interest in them, gave them full authority, and what is neces¬ 
sary for success in railroad management, stood right behind them 
and was not afraid, at any time, to take the responsibility of any of 
their acts. This, of course, was one of the great elements of his suc¬ 
cess. You never see a person along his line of roads who does not 
speak well of him, from the top down. 

I have seen it stated lately that Mr. Harriman found, on taking 
charge of the Union Pacific, “two dirt ballasted streaks of rust. 
The stations along the mountain grades were tumble-down shacks, 
most of the equipment fit only for the scrap pile. From top to bottom, 
the Union Pacific suffered from bankruptcy, brought on by political 
and financial intrigue.” There is no truth in this statement. When 
the Union Pacific went into the receivers’ hands, it was carried there 
by a floating debt of $18,000,000, contracted in developing the prop¬ 
erty and building branches. The road was then earning some 
$45,000,000 gross, and $16,000,000 net, yearly, and was 10,000 or more 
miles in length. The demonetization of silver destroyed, for a time, 

63 



IIow We Built The Union Pacific. 


the mining and other industries along the Union Pacific from the 
Missouri River to California, reducing its earnings to $29,000,000 
gross per year. It could not stand this great decrease and carry its 
debt. 

During the time it was in the receivers’ hands its operating organi¬ 
zation was good and the physical condition of the road was equal to 
or better than that of any road west of the Missouri River; while no 
additional mileage was added to it, its earnings were devoted to main¬ 
taining the property. As soon as Mr. Harriman took charge of the 
road it, like all other railroads in the United States, had to be fitted 
to carry the weight of the modern locomotives, cars, and trains put 
upon it to handle the great increase of traffic from 1897 to the present 
time. 

Mr. Harriman saw and grasped this situation, and not only pro¬ 
vided for this great traffic but reduced the grades of the road, short¬ 
ened the distance, and made possible by double tracking it the 
handling of its increasing traffic for many years to come. 

The great interests that Mr. Harriman controlled and those he 
was interested in covers the entire continent, and included not only 
the transportation but many industries, banks, financial interests, 
etc., and were far too much of a burden to place upon one man. But 
no matter how much we may try to avoid the accumulation of such 
duties, it was hard for him and will be for aiwone who takes his place 
to stop the accumulations and combinations, for all the laws now, 
state and national, force consolidation and combinations. While this 
country grows in every direction, the controlling interests decrease in 
number, and legislation and financial interest cause this great change. 

Under a fair wind they all seem to prosper. They stood fairly 
well through the panic, but the question is, How will they weather 
any long and steady decrease in our crops and any general decline of 
our greatly diversified business? 

Although undersized in stature and frail in physical strength, Mr. 
Harriman was the boldest fighter of these times, and his success lay 
mainly in the fact that he was considered a fair fighter. 

He had two sides to his character. One the public saw; the other, 
those who worked with him and were close to him saw. He had a 
kind word for everyone who was trying to succeed. He was espe¬ 
cially kind to those who were in his immediate employ, and he had a 
heart that went out to all appeals from those in trouble. He was 
devoted to his family and his home. 

We who knew him can appreciate the West’s great loss; but if he 
had to go, it was best that he should fall at the zenith of his great 
successes and at a time when his great work was moving steadily 
forward, well manned and well in hand. 


64 









EAGLE NEST, UTAH. 

(Note the nest on the summit of the rock.) 







TRIBUTE TO GEN. G. M. DODGE ON HIS WORK IN 
BUILDING THE UNION PACIFIC RAILWAY. 


By John N. Baldwin, General Solicitor of the Union Pacific Railway, at the Meet¬ 
ing of the Society of the Army of the Tennessee at Council Bluffs, Iowa, 1906. 


Mr. Toastmaster, Ladies, and Gentlemen : 

Though solemnized by the ceaseless mutations of time, this is an 
occasion well calculated to awaken the buoyancy and quicken the 
heart beat of every citizen who loves his country and its institutions. 

In this -time of great national eminence, with happiness regnant in 
20,000,000 American homes, with our astral emblem honored and re¬ 
spected throughout the world, with the seat of peace of both hemi¬ 
spheres by the Potomac, with a nation distinguished for its commerce, 
its wealth, its Christianity, and its enlightenment, it is meet that we 
should pause in our onward flight to acknowledge with full hearts 
our love, our reverence, our boundless gratitude, and obligation to and 
for our preserver and benefactor—the Union soldier. 

We have with us to-night one of the chief actors in what history 
truly represents as the greatest tragedy ever played in the theater of 
war. He saw the curtain rise on Fort Sumter and fall on Appo¬ 
mattox. He shared with his comrades in arms the fortunes and mis¬ 
fortunes of military life, and like them he received his plaudits and 
his wounds. 

I have the honor to speak of our distinguished fellow-townsman, 
our neighbor, our friend, Gen. Grenville M. Dodge. 

If our honored friend experiences some embarrassment as he listens 
to the recital of his deeds and achievements, he must remember the 
pleasure it affords those who offer their tribute and their expressions 
of esteem, and also remember that if the struggles and triumphs of 
the strong and successful are never to be recounted, the inspiration of 
worthy action might be lost and many tender chords remain un¬ 
touched. 

Let us, then, be what we are and speak what we think, and in all things keep 
ourselves loyal to the truth and the sacred professions of friendship. 

I believe that it will be both profitable and pleasurable for us to 
stop a moment during these tempestuous, tumultuous, business- 
S. Doc. 447, 61-2—10-5 63 



How We Built The Union Pacific . 


expanding, wealth-getting, and property-developing times and seri¬ 
ously contemplate the rugged and lasting qualities of such a man as 
General Dodge, and also with fitting ceremony and circumstance in 
the presence of the highest in the community, give to him his true 
meed and merit. 

The Army of the Tennessee is conspicuous in American history. 
Around it is woven the story of the civil war. It participated in more 
than forty engagements, among them being a number of the greatest 
battles of that war. It not only participated, it was in the thick of 
the conflict, and was often the medium through which defeat was 
turned into victory. More than once the fate of the Union depended 
upon its prowess and soldierly valor. It was so at Shiloh, Vicksburg, 
Corinth, Atlanta, and in fact nearly all the great battlefields of the 
war. As General Grant, speaking of Vicksburg, says in his personal 
memoirs, “ It looks now as if Providence directed the course of the 
campaign, while the Army of the Tennessee executed the decree.'’ 

The name of General Dodge will forever be associated with the 
Army of the Tennessee, its great soldier in time of war and its great 
citizen in time of peace. He was one of its best and honored com¬ 
manders, a fit companion of Sherman, McPherson, and Logan. In 
the personal memoirs of Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan are found the 
highest testimonials of these great soldiers to the valor, courage, skill, 
and bravery of General Dodge. Commendation from such a source 
is a priceless legacy. 

I desire to speak to-night of the achievements and triumphs of 
General Dodge in the ranks of private citizenship. While he has 
illuminated the pages of American history with his deeds of valor, 
he has also made his impress as a private citizen in the sphere of 
industry. 

It is not the rule that men aScend to eminence by leaps and bounds. 
It is by steady tread that we move up the rough and rugged path to 
success. This is an age of concrete thought, and those of whatever 
vocation who rise above mediocrity and reach eminence and distinc¬ 
tion are they who subject their lives to the crucible of hard intellectual 
and physical endeavor. 

We often and wisely repeat the truism that man is the architect of 
his own fortune. Individuality is the despot, destiny the subject. 

I do not subscribe to the doctrine that all men are created equal or 
that at the threshold of life’s contest all are equally armed, but among 
those who are thus favored some fail while others succeed, thus estab¬ 
lishing the fact that success is a reward, not a legacy. 

A man rising to eminence acquires that estate at tremendous cost. 
Many they are who crave it but few they are who are willing to strive 
for it in the only way it can be obtained; that is, by hard and constant 

66 










LARAMIE PEAK, WYOMING. 

On line of Union Pacific Railway survey, 18 ( 17 . 






















Tribute To Gen. G. M. Dodge On His Work. 


endeavor. And it is not true that those who stand on the pedestal of 
fame are, as a rule, those who have crossed life’s chasms on the bridge 
of sacrifice. 

General Dodge’s position to-day in the business and transportation 
world represents an investment of years of hard labor and useful life. 
Without heraldry of birth, without moneyed or influential friends, 
but with labor, diligence, integrity, and faith in himself, he has risen 
steadily and marked a path across the railroad world. Studious, 
thoughtful, and indefatigable. He has had much to encounter and 
much to conquer. He never despised an opponent and never became 
careless, and he never feared one and therefore never became un¬ 
nerved. He always had faith. He may have thought sometimes in 
the struggle that right would be defeated, but he never believed for 
a moment that wrong would triumph. Fidelity was his sovereign, 
loyalty his guide, and devotion his ruler. He bivouacked at his post 
of duty and absolutely only sought relief and solace in increased 
opportunity. 

He is the very incarnation of resoluteness and determination. It 
is because he saw events and their causes, strove to obviate conse¬ 
quences, studied to ascertain contingencies, and because of caution and 
foresight, that he became distinguished in this realm of action, reach¬ 
ing a point where he had no superiors. 

The Pacific railways were the great constructive forces in the de¬ 
velopment of the country west of the Missouri River, and of these 
the Union Pacific was the pioneer and the first to lead the march of 
civilization into the wilderness. It was not conceived for private 
ends nor born of the spirit of commercialism, but was created to pre¬ 
serve' a republic and projected by the impulse of improvement. It is 
the only railroad in the United States that was constructed under fed¬ 
eral muskets and protected by federal troops, and of which it was said 
by the Supreme Court of the United States that the people of this 
country would have sanctioned the action of Congress in its creation 
if it had departed from the traditional policy of the country regard¬ 
ing work of internal improvement and charged the Government itself 
with the direction and execution of the enterprise. 

Its construction began on the 2d day of December, 1863, on the 
west bank of the Missouri River, in the city of Omaha. May 10, 
1869, on Promontory Point, Utah, with simple but impressive cere¬ 
monies the last spike was driven, fastening the connecting rail be¬ 
tween the Central and Union Pacific railways, completing an iron 
highway between the two oceans and consummating one of the great¬ 
est achievements of the age. 

President Lincoln, fully appreciating the genius and indomitable 
will of General Dodge, immediately after the war called him to the 

67 



How We Built The Union Pacific, 


task of construction of the Union Pacific Railroad. He turned his 
face, recently bathed in the smoke of musketry, toward the “ Wilder¬ 
ness,” the “ Rockies,” and the “ Great American Desert,” and he sur¬ 
veyed and supervised the construction of that road, then a “ military 
necessity,” now one of the great systems of railways which move the 
commerce of the world. He had no maps or charts to afford him in¬ 
formation of the topography of the county. The territory traversed 
was designated in text-books as a wilderness designed by nature to 
be the eternal habitation of the savage and the buffalo. 

Limited by law to a maximum gradient of 116 feet to the mile, 
not compensated for curvature, he held it down to 90 feet to the 
mile. Pressed for time, Congress impatient, the people demanding 
an early completion, he had to contend with hostile Indians, inade¬ 
quate funds, lack of transportation facilities, high-priced labor, and 
numerous other obstacles, but in spite of all he pushed his line across 
the continent, consummating a feat in railway engineering unequaled 
in the history of American railway construction. 

To emphasize this great achievement, I speak authoritatively, offi¬ 
cially, and with full knowledge of the facts when I say that the 
present management of the Union Pacific, for the express purpose 
of shortening the line between Council Bluffs and Ogden, and bet¬ 
tering it, if that were possible, had surveys and revisions made and 
expended millions of dollars in eliminating gradients, curvatures, 
and tunneling mountains, with no limit as to time or means, with 
full knowledge of the topography of the country, with all modern 
appliances, with the services of a corps of the ablest engineers, yet 
it only succeeded in reducing the distance less than 40 miles. And 
this reduction in mileage was due largely—in fact, almost entirely— 
to changes in gradients and curvatures, which were rendered im¬ 
possible to General Dodge by reason of lack of funds. 

To General Dodge these were years tense with their stress and 
strain, heav}^ with unremitting toil, thrilling in danger, but he still 
pushed ever forward and onward with the confidence of a conqueror. 
He was a man of judgment and common sense, who spared nothing 
and wanted everything; a man who believed in action and knew the 
value of every moment of time. And above all, my friends, actu¬ 
ated by the impulse to better his country, himself, and his descend- 
ents, he toiled with those who overcame this wilderness and converted 
this great “American Desert ” into a “ Garden of Benefits.” 

And to yon, remaining members of the Army of the Tennessee, 
now in the twilight of life, I offer the sentiment which pervaded the 
soul of the Cumaean Sibyl when she presented her books to Tar- 
quinius Priscus, “As you grow fewer in numbers you become dearer 
to our hearts.” 


68 









































































On line of Union Pacific Railway survey, 1807. 






SPEECH OF G. M. DODGE IN CONGRESS, MARCH 25 , 
1868 , ON THE UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD. 


Mr. Speaker: As there appears to be some misapprehension as to 
the true status of the Union Pacific Railroad and its branches, ail I 
desire to do is to set forth the facts in relation to that enterprise. I 
have no defense of the company to make. I leave that to the country 
and this House; but, sir, I believe I know as well as any man can 
what that company has done and what its intentions are. I will 
notice briefly a few points of the gentleman from Wisconsin. I be¬ 
lieve that he does not desire to misrepresent that great enterprise, and 
I therefore desire to correct a few statements that bear directly upon 
the subject before the House. The gentleman says the Government 
has given absolute control to parties managing the Union Pacific 
Railroad. Does he not know that the Union Pacific Railroad has to 
build its road under the supervision of three government commission¬ 
ers, who examine and criticise every mile of road built before it is 
accepted by the Government, and that they, under oath, certify the 
road is a first-class American road before $1 or 1 cent can be obtained 
from the Government ? And this is not all; every act of the board of 
directors and of the company is criticised and scrutinized by 5 gov¬ 
ernment directors, appointed by the President, and forming one- 
fourth of the board of directors. One of these government directors 
has a position on each one of the committees, and nothing can be done 
in or out of the board but what they have full cognizance of. No 
other of the roads receiving government aid has any such board or 
any such supervision, and these directors have full knoAvledge of the 
rates of freight, the necessity for these rates, etc. 

The gentleman says it is a work that over sixty millions of the 
people’s money is to be invested in, whereas the law prohibits the loan 
of over fifty millions of credit or bonds to the main line, and so far 
not a cent of the people’s money has been put into the enterprise, the 
company having fully paid their interest on bonds; and if the money 
saved to the Government in the transportation of government freight, 
mails, troops, etc., should be made a sinking fund it would pay off the 


G9 



How We Built The Union Pacific. 


entire debt or entire amount of bonds within thirty years. In another 
place he says: 

If we see fit to sacrifice posterity to tliis giant monopoly, that they will have 
$100,000,000 of the people’s money in their hands; that they (the company) 
will defy any legislation. 

Now, sir, I do not understand where the gentleman gets his 
$100,000,000, as I have shown the company can only obtain $50,000,000 
on the main road under any circumstances. The amount really 


granted to the company is as follows: 

For 534 miles, at $16,000 per mile_$8, 544, 000 

For 300 miles, at $48,000 per mile, namely, 150 miles of mountain 
work from Cheyenne west, and 150 miles of mountain work from 

near Sacramento east, which equals__ 14, 400, 000 

For 898 miles crossing the main divide of the continent, the Wasatch, 

Promontory, Laone, Taone, and Humboldt ranges of mountains, 
at $32,000 per mile, amounting to_ 28, 736, 000 


Making a total amount of bonds for the main through line of_ 51, 680,000 
If the company received pay on the full length of line that they 


will have to build to complete the road from the Missouri River to 
Sacramento; but as, under the law, they obtain only $50,000,000 
for 1,832 miles of road, counting the distance to San Francisco, they 
get an average of a little over $27,000 per mile; that the Government 
loans its credit for the purpose of obtaining an all-rail communication 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific through a county, over mountains 
and plains, that no private enterprise would for one moment invest 
1 cent without government aid. If this road is to be the great thor¬ 
oughfare that the gentleman says it will be, then the government 
freight that will alone go over it will more than pay their interest 
on the loan. 

And now, sir, the gentleman says the Government has furnished 
every dollar to complete this road—in other words, that not 1 cent 
of money has been put into the enterprise outside of the Govern¬ 
ment—and I deny in toto the statement of the gentleman. I say up 
to the present time that that company has furnished and spent more 
money in building the road than the Government has loaned; and, 
according to the gentleman’s statement, they have only built as yet 
the easiest portion of the road; he says 500 miles of the built por¬ 
tion is a dead level, and assumes the contract to commence at Omaha. 
This is not the fact; it commences 247 miles west of Omaha. There¬ 
fore all his assertions and assumptions fall to the ground, being based 
upon false premises. When you compare the rates of this road with 
other roads you will not see so vast a difference as is endeavored to be 
shown. 


70 







Speech Of G . M. Dodge In Congress, March 25 , 1868 . 


The Union Pacific Railroad charge about 7 mills per 100 pounds 
of freight per mile. The great Eastern routes, competing for 
freight between the great cities of the East and the great West, 
charge from 2J to 4 mills per 100 pounds per mile, they having all 
the advantages of civilization, concentration, transportation, the 
cheapness of material, fuel, repairs, etc.; while the Western roads— 
the roads east of the Missouri River—charge 4 and 5 mills on 100 
pounds per mile. Many of the local Southern railroads charge 4, 5, 6, 
and as high as 7 mills per 100 pounds of freight per mile. As to 
passenger fare, the Union Pacific Railroad Company is now charging 
10 cents per mile; the Northwestern Railroad Company, 4 cents per 
mile; the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Company, 3J 
cents per mile; the Richmond, Danville and Piedmont Railroad 
Company, 6 cents per mile; and these roads are all in a heavily 
settled country, with heavy local business, while the Union Pacific 
Railroad runs 500 miles into a wilderness, without comparatively any 
local business, nearly all their freight and travel going but one way. 

Now, sir, the past year coal for fuel has cost the Union Pacific 
Railroad Company from $28 to $42 per ton, delivered at places for 
use. It has had to be obtained in Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa, and 
has had to be transported from 500 to 1,000 miles before the com¬ 
pany could use it. Again, wood, at first cost, has been $6 to $11 per 
cord, and when laid down at the points for use averaged about $18 
to $20 per cord. Labor and living of all kinds on the Union Pacific 
Railroad and branches are one-third more than on Eastern roads. 
Material for repairs of road, cars, running stock, building material, 
and all other things pertaining to the keeping up and furnishing the 
road, have to be transported from the East. And the gentleman 
asks this House to burden us with rates and fares that he knows the 
road could not earn its running expenses under. 

As soon as- the road reaches the coal fields 100 miles west of the 
track, then the companies propose to reduce the rates and fare them¬ 
selves; they have already reduced them somewhat; and so far as 
these railroad companies being a grinding monopoly it is far from 
the facts in the case, and is not substantiated by any proofs whatever. 
The gentleman, it seems to me, takes a very singular way to protect 
the Government. He charges that the bonds will never be paid; 
that our rates are equal to old rates by wagons and stage, and he 
comes in here with a proposition that, if adopted, would prevent these 
companies from earning sufficient money to even pay the interest on 
their bonds. It is the first time that I ever saw the mortgagee come 
in and endeavor to injure the value of the property of the mortgagor, 
and if possible put the property on which he holds a mortgage in a 


71 




How We Built The Union Pacific. 


condition that they can not only pay the mortgage, but not even the 
interest on the mortgage. 

Now, Mr. Speaker, as to the rates as compared with former rates 
as paid by the Government for transportation of its freight. The 
average price paid by the Government for 1865, 1866, and 1867, in¬ 
clusive, on route No. 2, from Leavenworth west, was $1.57 per 100 
pounds per 100 miles, or 1J cents per mile per 100 pounds—more than 
double the rates upon the Union Pacific Railroad and branches; and 
in the last year the Government has saved by transporting its freight 
on the Union Pacific Railroad, eastern division, over what it would 
have had to pay if transported by wagon trains over' an average 
transportation of only 104 miles of railroad, $335,138; or, if that 
road had been built 300 miles west, it would have saved by this 
“ great monopoly,” with its u exorbitant rates and tariffs,” over 
$1,000,000. And the statement made by the Quartermaster-General 
of the rates of freight over the plains, over route No. 1, the Great 
Platte Valley route, for the last six years, is as follows: 

Quartermaster-General’s Office, 
Washington, D. C., March 24, 1868. 

Hon. G. M. Dodge, M. C., 

Washington, D. C. 

Sir : In reply to your communication of the 20th instant to this office request¬ 
ing information as to the rates paid for each year for the last five years and 
the total number of pounds of stores transported and total cost for such trans¬ 
portation on route No. 1 for 1866 and 1867, I have the honor to state that the 
rates of transportation per 100 pounds per 100 miles on route No. 1 for the 
last five years, including the contract rates for the present year, are as follows: 


1864: 

April_$2. 25 

May_ 2. 25 

June_ 2. 25 

July_ 2. 25 

August_ 2. 25 

September_ 2. 25 

1865: 

April_ 2. 26 

May_ 2. 26 

June_ 2. 26 

July_ 2. 26 

August_ 2. 26 

September_ 2. 26 

1866: 

April_ 1. 45 

May_ 1.45 

June_ 1.45 

July_ 1.45 

August_ 1.45 

September_ 1.45 

1867-68: 

April_ 1. 64 

May_ 1. 64 


This office is unable at present to 
transported over route No. 1 for the 


1867- 68—Continued. 

June_$1.64 

July_ 1. 64 

August_ 1. 64 

September_ 1. 99 

October_ 1. 99 

November_ 1.99 

December_ 1.99 

January_ 2. 50 

February_ 2. 50 

March_ 2. 50 

1868- 69: 

April_ 1.90 

May_ 1.75 

June_ 1. 60 

July_ 1'. 60 

August_ 1. 60 

September_ 1.75 

October___ 1. 75 

November_ 1.90 

December_ 2. 00 

January_ 2. 50 

February s ___ 2. 50 

March_ 3.00 

rnish the number of pounds of stores 


ars 1866 and 1867, and the cost of such 


72 













































Speech Of G. M. Bodge In Congress, March 25,1868. 


transportation for that time; but the information desired on this point has been 
this day called for from the chief quartermaster military division of the Mis¬ 
souri, which, as soon as received, will be forwarded to you. 

Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

D. H. Rucker, 

Acting Quartermaster-General, 

Brevet Major-General U. S. Army. 

The average is $2 per 100 pounds per 100 miles, or 2 cents per mile, 
being 1 cent and 3 mills above the rates of the Union Pacific Railroad. 
The Quartermaster-General is now unable to give me the precise facts 
as to the saving in rates, but we can figure for ourselves. The gov¬ 
ernment transportation over the road last year was about 20,000,000 
pounds of freight, and the Union Pacific Railroad transported it, on 
an average, 400 miles; showing a saving to the Government on its 
freight alone, at the average price of the last six years, of about 
$1,040,000. If we take the price that the contracts are let for this 
year and apply it to the amount of freight that will be transported 
over from 500 to 800 miles of line, the saving will reach nearly $2,000,- 
000 on the Union Pacific Railroad, and nearly $1,000,000 on the Union 
Pacific Railroad, eastern division. 

And now, Mr. Speaker, what are the facts in relation to the Union 
Pacific Railroad? This road was projected some fourteen years ago. 
The first examination as to its feasibility was made by private enter¬ 
prise and private capital, and a connection with it, dating back to 
its first inception, renders me able to state some of the difficulties 
under which it has labored. The examination made by me thereon 
and reported to the capitalists of the United States showed that at 
that day or this it would be impossible to build that road upon pri¬ 
vate capital and credit alone. The country demanding the railroad, 
the Republican party, in its farseeing and liberal policy, seeing the 
necessity of this railroad, indorsed it, made it a part of their plat¬ 
form, and breathed life into it by the bill passed in 18G2. But even 
then, with that law and that grant, it w T as found impossible to raise 
the funds to push it forward or even to build a mile of the road. The 
Congress seeing this amended the act in 1864, and after the passage of 
that act this great monopoly, this great swindle, could not obtain the 
means for one year to start the work. 

A few men took hold of the enterprise, threw their fortunes and 
their energies into it, and the capitalists of the country looked upon 
it as so foolish an act on their part that they were actually shunned as 
prospective bankrupts; their paper would not be taken except upon 
first-class collateral securities, and within one year the enterprise 
came near failing for want of financial support. But the energy and 
determination displayed by that company; the unheard-of ability 
displayed in pushing forward the work; the unexpected development 

73 




How We Built The Union Pacific . 


of that country that the enterprise caused, called the attention of the 
world to it, and now, to-day, the men who would not one year ago 
have put a dollar into it are denouncing it as a great monopoly, and 
trying to cripple it by unjust and unequal legislation. If it is a suc¬ 
cess, and any money is made out of it, it will be simply and merely 
from the fact that a few men had the nerve and the foresight to throw 
their all into the scale, and “ sink or swim ” with the enterprise. 
And, Mr. Speaker, to reach the success they have to-day, no person 
can for one moment know or see the obstructions, prejudice, and 
obstacles those companies have had to meet and overcome. The first 
500 miles of road were built without an eastern connection; they had 
to start hundreds of miles away from any railroad connection, in a 
country entirely destitute of the proper means or material for build¬ 
ing a road; paying enormous prices for labor and material; trans¬ 
porting the superstructure and equipment by water at from 33 to 50 
per cent more than it would cost to build the same length of road in 
a country affording railroad facilities. The iron laid down cost $125 
a ton, equipment and everything else pertaining to the road that 
came from the East costing in the same proportion. 

The first year the company, under these circumstances, built about 
40 miles, the next 2G0, and the next 250 miles, but with a lavish ex¬ 
penditure of money that astonished the world. Who, in 1864, could 
have been made to believe that this company would have accom¬ 
plished what it has? What class of men except those who had this 
enterprise at heart would have paid 33J per cent more for building 
the road merely for the purpose of obtaining distance when, if they 
had carried out only the true letter of the law, they could have saved 
that amount and put it in their pockets? Have they had at interest 
themselves more than the country ? I hold not, for I know that their 
orders have been to give them the most miles of road in the least pos¬ 
sible time, no matter what it cost. And in their contract they have 
provided $7,500 per mile for the equipment of the road, a sum far 
beyond any ever before provided for a new road under similar cir¬ 
cumstances; and when built and equipped this sum will give it the 
best machinery, the best shops, and the most liberal supply of rolling 
stock of any road in the country for the business it has to transact. 
During the past two years the road has been built through an Indian 
country with all the tribes banded together and hostile. Our best 
and ablest men have been killed; our cars and stations and ranches 
burned; our men driven off and our stock stolen. Graders and track¬ 
layers, tiemen, and station builders, have had to sleep under guard, 
and have gone to their work in the daytime with their picks and 
shovels and their mechanical tools in one hand and the rifle in the 
other, and they often had to drop one and use the other. 


74 






Speech Of G. M. Dodge In Congress, March 25 , 1868 . 


It may not be known, but it is a fact, that the graders went to their 
w r ork as soldiers, stacked their arms by the cuts and worked all day, 
with hostile bands of Indians in view, ready to pounce upon, kill, 
and scalp any unlucky or negligent person who gave them an oppor¬ 
tunity. The company paid not only the cost of the work proper, but 
contractors were often paid large sums for the risks they run. It is 
an easy matter to-day, after the enterprise has been made a success, 
and when we can just begin to see the beginning of the end, when 
daylight begins to open on the future out of these years of darkness, 
for men to now come in and endeavor, for some reason, I know not 
what, to hamper these roads, to pass laws that they know will make 
them spend the energies that it is their duty to put on the road and 
which are necessary to complete it, in trying to break down the bar¬ 
riers that this bill, if passed, will make against those roads in the 
financial market. And I doubt if the gentleman from Illinois or the 
gentleman from Wisconsin, who appear to make this great repub¬ 
lican national work their special objective point, would, for all the 
money in it, stand as I have had to do, at the risk of my life, and 
endeavor to keep men from abandoning the work; would travel as 
I have done to make the surveys and construct the road, obliged to 
keep all the time within the range of a government musket, for to 
be outside of it was to lose your scalp. 

And now, Mr. Speaker, while the Government has been liberal to 
this great enterprise, I hold and can prove that while the road has 
received this liberal credit, that it will bring to the Treasury millions 
in the saving of the extra expenses in freight; that it must and will 
develop a country whose wealth no one to-day can predict. The 
mountains those roads cross are no myth, as the gentleman states, 
but were formidable obstructions in its path, which have been over¬ 
come by the skill and energy of the company. These mountains are 
underlaid with gold, silver, iron, copper, and coal. The timber ranges 
that those roads pass will develop an immense lumber trade, and the 
millions upon millions of acres of government land that they will 
bring into the market and render feasible for settlement will bring to 
the Government more money than all the bonds amount to; and this 
land and these minerals never would have brought this Government 
one cent if it were not for the building of these roads. The inaccessi¬ 
bility and the trouble and cost of developing the country through 
which they run would have cost ten times more under any other cir¬ 
cumstances than it would have yielded. And now, Mr. Speaker, these 
Union Pacific railroads, when completed, will build up an interest right 
in the center of that heretofore great unknown country, an empire 
that shall add to our wealth, population, capital, and greatness, from a 
source we never expected, and by no other means could we ever obtain. 


75 


































































































































































































































































































THE CIVIL ENGINEER IN AN EARLY DAY AND IN 
THE CIVIL WAR. 

Address delivered before the Western Society of Civil Engineers. 


I have been requested to talk to you about the civil engineers of my 
day. This is a subject of so much importance and so much breadth 
that it is almost impossible to grasp it. The work of the civil engi¬ 
neer in developing our country and in the civil war has never been 
comprehended or proper tribute paid to it, and I can take it up only 
in small details. Perhaps I can show it to you more clearly by stating 
what I saw of it personally, and this will be better than trying to go 
into the subject generally. 

A young boy, 20 years old, I left Norwich University, Vermont, a 
military college, as a civil and military engineer. My military train¬ 
ing was of as much or more benefit to me generally, perhaps, in the 
work I had to undertake, than what I had learned of engineering, for 
it taught me how to command men; it gave me discipline, a respect for 
authority, obedience to order, loyalty to my country, and an interest 
in the work of my employer, which would have been impossible for 
me to have obtained in any other way. I came West and took an 
axman’s place in an engineering party on the Illinois Central Rail¬ 
road. Mr. Blackstone was the division engineer, with headquarters 
at La Salle, Ill. I was assigned to a party that was running a line 
from La Salle to Dixon. As soon as I joined it I saw its chief was a 
lazy fellow. He soon learned that I could run an instrument, and put 
me at that work, he staying in the house pretending to work up the 
data we obtained in the field. It was a cold winter, the thermome¬ 
ter often below zero; and I thought I saw plainly the line I was run¬ 
ning would not be acceptable and made up my mind that as soon as we 
returned to La Salle to leave the party and seek a position somewhere 
else, for I was satisfied that Mr. Blackstone would discharge the en¬ 
tire party. I followed this inclination. When I returned to La 
Salle and submitted our work I called upon Mr. Blackstone, asking 
him for my pay, stating I was going to leave. He greeted me very 
cordially and seemed astonished at my request. However, he paid 
me and I immediately left. Years after this incident, when I had 


77 



How We Built The Union Pacific . 


become better acquainted with Mr. Blackstone, he used to make a 
good deal of fun of me by stating he knew I had run the line, that it 
was a good line, and that he intended to give me the chief’s place and 
put me at the head of the party, thus showing that I was a little pre¬ 
vious in my act, and that I did not know how good a line I had run. 

When I came West I had in mind the Pacific Railroad, and as an 
indication to you of my enthusiasm in that quarter, I quote an extract 
that I wrote home from Peru, Ill., September 12, 1851. It is as 
follows: 

I closed my last letter by saying that there was good news. A telegraph dis¬ 
patch was received here that the Rock Island road, 200 miles long, was to be 
built; that Sheffield & Farnam, of Connecticut, had taken the contract. This 
will give direct connection by the Rock Island road with Wisconsin, Iowa, and 
Oregon, for this is the true Pacific road and will soon be built to Council Bluffs, 
where a road from St. Louis will meet it. Then from Council Bluffs to San 
Francisco, this being the shortest and most feasible route. In an eastern direc¬ 
tion, this road connects with the Michigan Southern, which is nearly completed 
to Chicago, and will give us through railroad connections with New York and 
Boston. 

The Council Bluffs I mention was that named by Lewis and Clark, 
the town now known by that name not having been organized at that 
time. 

I left the Illinois Central and went to the Rock Island as axman 
under Mr. Peter A. De} 7 , who was the division engineer stationed at 
Tiskilwa, Ill. I was with Mr. Dey about eight months, and under 
his direction had made a survey of the Peoria and Bureau Valley 
Railroad in Illinois. Mr. Dey w r as promoted to chief engineer of the 
Mississippi and Missouri Railroad and took me to Iowa as his princi¬ 
pal assistant, placing me in charge of a party in the field, which was 
a very fine promotion for the limited experience I had, and it is one 
of the greatest satisfactions of my life to have had his friendship 
from the time I entered his service until now. Mr. Dey is not only 
a very distinguished citizen of Iowa, but is one of the most prominent 
engineers of this country. He was known for his great ability, his 
uprightness, and the square dealing he gave everyone. He has 
greatly honored his State in the many public positions he has held. 
He has a wide reputation as engineer and railway constructor, and in 
later years as railway commissioner of that State. 

In May, 1853, we crossed the Mississippi River at Davenport and 
surveyed the first railroad line across Iowa. The settlements in Iowa 
then were confined almost entirely to the country between Davenport 
and Iowa City. From Iowa City west to Des Moines there were very 
few people, and from 12 miles west of Des Moines to Council Bluffs 
there were none. On reaching the Missouri River my party was in¬ 
structed to push west into the great Platte Valley to determine where 


78 




Civil Engineer In An Early Bay And In Civil War. 


a road running up that valley would strike the Missouri River. That 
country then was occupied solely by Indians. There was scarcely a 
man in my party who had seen an Indian. We crossed the river in 
a flatboat, and I commenced the surveys west from where the city of 
Omaha now stands. After I had raised the bluffs skirting the Mis¬ 
souri, I left the party in charge of my assistant, Mr. J. E. House, 
and went on alone some 25 miles to the Elkhorn Valley, looking up 
the country ahead. On reaching the Elkhorn Valley about noon, I 
lariated my horse, took my rifle, hid it, and, making a pillow of my 
saddle, lay down to take a rest. I had lost a good deal of sleep and 
was very tired. How long I slept there I do not know, but I was 
awakened by the noise of my pony. Jumping up, I saw an Indian 
leading him toward the Elkhorn River as rapidly as he could. The 
pony was holding back, being evidently very much frightened at the 
Indian. I was greatly frightened, hardly knowing what to do, but I 
grabbed my rifle and rushed after the pony and the Indian, yelling at 
the top of my voice. The Indian let go the horse and swam across 
the Elkhorn out of my reach, and I was very glad to see him go. In 
1865, during the Indian campaign I made upon the plains, that In¬ 
dian was an enlisted man in a battalion of Pawnees. He told his 
commander, Major North, that the reason he gave up the horse was I 
made so much noise it frightened him so it nearly scared him to 
death. 

Returning to the party I found them camped on the Papillion 
Creek, with the camp full of Indians and every man in the party 
cooking for or feeding them. I saw that radical action had to be 
taken or the provisions I had would all be gone. My party was thor¬ 
oughly armed. I got them together immediately and notified the 
Indians to get out. By my prompt action they saw we meant business 
and left us. From that time until I stopped my work on the plains 
I never allowed the party to have Indians come into camp except by 
the party’s permission. 

This is the kind of responsibility the young engineer in that day 
had to undertake. He was away from anyone to advise with or to 
lean upon. He was responsible for his party, its life and safety were 
in his hands, and in the development of this country the risks taken 
and the dangers faced have never been told. 

From this time until the civil war we were engaged in building 
the railroad to the capital of Iowa, Iowa City, and in making recon- 
noissance west of the Missouri River for a Pacific railroad. It might 
seem strange to you that although the Government spent millions of 
dollars in examining different routes for the Pacific railway, cover¬ 
ing the country between parallels of 32 and 49, which reports of 
examinations were printed in 11 large volumes, no examination was 

79 




llow We Built The Union Pacific . 


made by the Government upon the most feasible route across the 
continent; that was left to private enterprise. Our exploration and 
reconnoissance, up to 1860, had determined on the forty-second 
parallel of latitude, practically the present line of the Union Pacific 
Railroad crossing the continent. The detailed surveys had not been 
made, but the buffalo, the Indian, the fur trader, the telegraph, the 
pony express, the stage line, and finally the engineer determined that 
line, and the road, when built, followed it. 

In 1861 the civil war came. I went into the service with 600 other 
civil engineer's, who were graduates of Norwich University, all of 
whom became commissioned officers, many of them rising to the 
highest rank and to the highest command. Their work as civil engi¬ 
neers during the war was only second to that of their military duties 
as a soldier, and for this work as civil engineers they have received 
no credit. Also, there were many enlisted men detailed as engineers; 
they mapped out the roads and the streams; they rebuilt the railroads 
and they destroyed them; they made many of our campaigns pos¬ 
sible by their facilities in overcoming obstacles; they built temporary 
bridges; they showed great ingenuity in throwing up temporary 
entrenchments, even during the battles, and they constructed impreg¬ 
nable forts; always brave, never flinching a duty, and there is no 
commander of a brigade, division, or corps but who appreciated their 
great and valuable service. 

In 1862 I was assigned to the command of the central division of 
the Mississippi, with orders to reconstruct the railroad reaching 
from Columbus, Ky., to Corinth, Miss., for the purpose of bringing 
supplies to the army then concentrated at Corinth. This line of 
road crossed many deep bayous which had been spanned by truss 
bridges, all of which had been destroyed by the enemy as they re¬ 
treated, and, as I looked at the task before me and saw those deep 
bayous with no foundations and with no possible means of putting 
in proper piers and abutments or furnishing proper superstructure, 
it was a problem appalling to anyone.. I had two Wisconsin regi¬ 
ments in my command; one was commanded by Col. George E. 
Bryant, who had been a Norwich University cadet and a civil engi¬ 
neer. He commanded a regiment that was raised in the logging 
camps of Wisconsin. As soon as I received this order I ordered 
every engineer, civil or mechanical, or anyone who had any experi¬ 
ence in such work in the command to report to me, and I was aston¬ 
ished to see the number of enlisted men who reported. We held a 
consultation as to how we should handle this problem, and decided 
to put the Twelfth Wisconsin into the woods with their axes—that 
was about all the tools we had—to make crib piers for these streams. 


80 




Civil Engineer In An Early Day And In Civil War. 


It was easy work for us to handle the culverts, and it was astonish¬ 
ing how soon we rebuilt this railroad. The log cribs were belted 
together by dowel pins made from the iron rods of the house truss. 
We made stringers 30 and 40 feet long and sunk our piers to a founda¬ 
tion that would carry our trains. Within two months we had rebuilt 
this road and had put up at each important bridge a blockhouse so 
a small force could hold it against almost any enemy, and in the 
celebrated raid of Forrest up through that country, where he de¬ 
stroyed most of the bridges south of Jackson, Tenn., when he struck 
the blockhouses in our territory he was repulsed at every point. This 
drew the attention of General Grant to our work, and he immediately 
ordered blockhouses built' at every bridge on the railroads within his 
command. 

The ingenuity of these young engineers in putting up these bridges, 
blockhouses, and stockades, in overcoming every difficulty, and the 
interest they took in their work soon convinced me that all it needed 
in our army for effective construction or destruction of a railroad 
was proper organization of the material in hand. The mechanics 
in the command put the locomotives and cars on their feet and run 
them, so that virtually the young engineers and young mechanics in 
that command recreated the road, and as long as my corps was under 
General Grant’s direction or that of General Sherman whenever 
there was any destruction or reconstruction of any kind to be accom¬ 
plished it fell to us, until the pioneer corps of the Sixteenth Army 
Corps had as good a reputation for their mechanical work as they 
had for their fighting ability. 

In the fall of 1863, when General Grant was ordered to Chatta¬ 
nooga, my corps was lying at Corinth, when it received orders to join 
Sherman in his march to the relief of Chattanooga. Having a much 
longer distance to march than any of the other commands, I was not 
able to reach Chattanooga in time to take part in that battle, but 
when I reached Pulaski, on the Nashville and Decatur Railroad, I re¬ 
ceived orders from General Grant to halt and rebuild that line from 
Nashville to Decatur, the entire line having been destroyed. There 
were several truss bridges crossing Duck River, and also some very 
high trestles, some of them being 125 feet high; also the Tennessee 
River had to be crossed. General Grant was very anxious to have 
this road built rapidly, in order to feed his army at Chattanooga, 
which was in great distress, and Sherman told me the quicker I built 
the road the sooner I would get something for my command to eat, 
as we were entirely away from any base of supplies, living off the 
country, and had been doing so during the entire march. 


S, Doc. 447, 61-2—10-6 


81 



How We Built The Union Pacific. 


The work of the young engineers in rebuilding this road is a good 
deal better stated by General Grant in his Memoirs than I can tell 
you, and I will read what he sa}^s: 

I gave an order to Sherman to halt Gen. G. M. Dodge’s command, of about 
8,000 men, at Athens, and subsequently directed the latter to arrange his troops 
along the railroad from Decatur north toward Nashville, and to rebuild that 
road. The road from Nashville to Decatur passes over a broken country, cut 
up with innumerable streams, many of them of considerable width, and with 
valleys far below the roadbed. All the bridges over these had been destroyed 
and the rails taken up and twisted by the enemy. All the cars and locomotives 
not carried oft' had been destroyed as effectually as they knew how to destroy 
them. All of the bridges and culverts had been destroyed between Nashville 
and Decatur, and thence to Stevenson, where the Memphis and Charleston and 
the Nashville and Chattanooga roads unite. The rebuilding of this road would 
give us two roads as far as Stevenson over which to supply the army. From 
Bridgeport, a short distance east, the river supplements the road. 

General Dodge was an experienced railroad builder. He had no tools to 
work with except those of the pioneers—axes, picks, and spades. With these 
he was able to entrench his men and protect them against surprises by small 
parties of the enemy. As he had no base of supplies until the road could be 
completed back to Nashville, the first matter to consider after protecting his 
men was the getting in of food and forage from the surrounding country. He 
had his men and teams bring in all the grain they could find, or all they needed, 
and all the cattle for beef, and such other food as could be found. Millers were 
detailed from the ranks to run the mills along the line of the army. When 
those were not near enough to the troops for protection they were taken down 
and moved up in like manner. Blacksmiths were detailed and set to work 
making tools necessary in railroad and bridge building. Axmen were put to 
work getting out timber for bridges and cutting fuel for locomotives when the 
road should be completed. Car builders were set to work repairing the loco¬ 
motives and cars. Thus every branch of railroad building, making tools to 
work with, and supplying the workmen with food, was all going on at once and 
without the aid of a mechanic or laborer except what the command itself 
furnished. 

General Dodge had the work assigned him finished within forty days after 
receiving his orders. The number of bridges rebuilt was 182, many of them 
over deep, wide chasms; the length of road repaired was 102 miles. 

In 1864, when it came to the Atlanta campaign, most of the rail¬ 
road work, bridging, etc., was done by organized railroad men under 
General Wright. My command was called upon only two or three 
times in an emergency. 

I remember when we had flanked the enemy out of the Kenesaw 
Mountain line, where our extreme right rested on the Chattahoochee 
River some miles southwest of the railroad crossing, General Sher¬ 
man came to my headquarters and told me he proposed to flank 
Atlanta by moving his army to the left. We all supposed he was 
going by the right. He said to me there was a place called “ Ros¬ 
well Shoals,” on the Chattahoochee, where he desired to cross a por¬ 
tion of his army. He said the shoals were shallow, and described 

82 











TUNNEL NO. 3, WEBER CANYON, ON UNION PACIFIC RAILWAY. 

































































































Civil Engineer In An Early Bay And In Civil War . 


them to me, asking me how long it would take for my command to 
build a bridge over that stream. He stated his engineers had told him 
it was a big job. I looked the matter over and told him “ about a 
week.” He seemed astonished, and left me, but in a very short time 
I received orders from my commander, General McPherson, to move 
with my corps as rapidly as possible to Roswell, some 31 miles away, 
and that I would receive orders from General Sherman. We moved 
and made a march of 31 miles without stopping except for resting 
our men, and reached there about Sunday noon. 

When I arrived there I found that Roswell had several large fac¬ 
tories that had been supplying material to the enemy, and I saw 
if I had the timber in those factories I could soon put up a bridge 
across the river. The enemy occupied the opposite side, and one of 
the most inspiring sights I ever saw in my life was when I ordered 
the celebrated Ohio brigade to ford the river and take the opposite 
bank. The brigade formed in column with regiment front; the corps 
bands were brought down to the river; the artillery was placed so as 
to cover their crossing, and as the boys stepped into the river carrying 
their cartridge boxes on their bayonets and, with cheers, started to 
wade across the river, the bands played, the artillery opened fire, and 
the enemy poured in tlieir volleys. Occasionally a boy or two would 
strike a hole and go under, but soon came up, and when they got 
across they rushed for the cover of a cut bank, so the enemy’s fire 
would be less effective. There they re-formed, and charging, soon 
cleared the works. My pioneer corps now was very effective. It 
was about 1,500 strong and was organized into squads with a civil or 
mechanical engineer at the head of every squad. Everyone knew 
exactly what his duty was, just where and how to go to work, and 
all I had to do was to give the order. I immediately gave the order 
to pull down the cotton factories, and on Monday morning you could 
stand on the bank and see that bridge walk up, so that Wednesday at 
noon, in three days, I notified General Sherman that it was ready for 
crossing. He was astonished and sent a proper tribute to the young 
engineers for their quick work. My official dispatch to him read 
as follows: 

A footbridge 710 feet long was thrown across the river and from Monday 
noon, July 10, until Wednesday night, July 12, a good, substantial, double track, 
trestle-road bridge, 710 feet long and 14 feet high, was built by the pioneer corps 
from the command. 

The cotton factories that I had torn down were claimed by a 
Frenchman to belong to him; he had a French flag flying over his 
residence, but not over the factories. On Monday, after we had torn 
down a portion of one of the factories, my judge-advocate came to 
me and told me he thought I might be getting into trouble; that this 

83 





How We Built The Union Pacific. 


Frenchman was entering a protest. I had gone too far to stop taking 
down the factories, but I thought it probably better to protect myself, 
and communicated with General Sherman, who wrote me a letter 
dated July 11, as follows: 

Headquarters Military Division of the Mississippi, 

In the Field Near Chattanooga River , July 11, 1864. 
General Dodge, Roswell, Ga. 

I know you have a big job, but that is nothing new for you. Tell General 
Newton that his corps is now up near General Schofield’s crossing, and all is 
quiet thereabouts. He might send down and move his camps to proximity of 
his corps, but I think Roswell and Shallow Ford so important that I prefer 
him to be near you until you are well fortified. If he needs rations tell him to 
get his wagons up, and I think you will be able to spare him day after to¬ 
morrow. I know the bridge at Roswell is important, and you may destroy all 
Georgia to make it good and strong. 

W. T. Sherman, 

Major-General Commanding. 

You notice that General Sherman was very diplomatic. He says 
nothing in relation to international law or the French flag, but tells 
me I may destroy all Georgia to accomplish what I had to do. Of 
course, I read between the lines, and went on building the bridge. 

Sherman commenced crossing his army over this bridge on Wed¬ 
nesday afternoon and made his celebrated flank movement on Atlanta, 
where the great battles of the 19th, 22d, and 28th of July were fought 
and Atlanta finally occupied. 

Sherman was always profuse in his praise of the young engineers 
of the army that were continually at work gathering up informa¬ 
tion for us. I had a very efficient corps for that work under me and 
Sherman wrote me, thanking me for what I had been sending him, 
saying he would store it up for future use. This information con¬ 
cerning the streams, the villages, and roads was compiled at his head¬ 
quarters, printed on cloth, and a copy sent to each corps or division 
commander and was of great service to us. There was one young 
man detailed to me, who afterwards became a very noted engineer, 
Marshall F. Hurd, who enlisted from Muscatine. Iowa, in the Second 
Iowa Infantry. I soon discovered that he was a genius and of great 
ability as an engineer, of excellent practical judgment, and very 
brave. We all tried to get him promoted and a commission given 
him so he could command officers and men, but we never could ac¬ 
complish it. However, he virtually got to the head of the pioneer 
corps of the Sixteenth Army Corps, and the boys all dubbed him a 
major; and he was known all through the war as Major Ilurd, not 
only by the men of my corps but by the other corps. He would take 
his pioneer corps out to build entrenchments; he never allowed them 
to run when the skirmish line of the enemy made an attack, which 

84 




Civil Engineer In An Early Day And In Civil War. 


was often, but they would lay down their implements where they 
were, take their rifles, and fight it out themselves. He was very re¬ 
sourceful in an emergency. After the war he was connected with us 
on the Union Pacific and was at the head of some of the surveys both 
on the Union Pacific and the Southern Pacific, fought battles with 
the Indians, and when the Canadian Pacific was built he was sent for 
and went to that work, running some of the important lines over the 
mountain division. He was the most modest, retiring, unassuming 
man I ever met. He now lies buried in the cemetery at Denver with 
a monument raised to his memory and upon it a proper tribute to his 
great work. I mention him only as one among hundreds of enlisted 
men who performed such duties. 

In May, 1865, I returned to the Union Pacific Railway. Mr. Dey 
having resigned as chief engineer, I was appointed to that office. 
General Sherman, in giving me leave of absence to go there and take 
up this work, said in his letter: 

As soon as General Tope reaches Leavenworth or St. Louis to relieve you, I 
consent for you to go to Omaha and begin what I trust will be the real begin¬ 
ning of the great road. 

Almost the first dispatch when I reached Omaha was one from the 
commander at Fort Collins, Colo.—he had been with riie during my 
command of that country—telling me that a young man by the name 
of Eddy had brought in an engineering corps which had a fight with 
the Indians, and the chief of the party had been killed. I instructed 
him to have the corps meet me on Lodge Pole Creek, as I was just 
starting west over the line. I found that Eddy was a young soldier 
enlisted in the Thirteenth Illinois Infantry, and had served under 
me in the war. In this fight, after the chief had been killed, he 
rallied the rest of his party and brought it in safety to the military 
post. 

He stayed with me during the construction of the Union Pacific 
and also the Texas Pacific; probably many of you know him, as at 
one time he was general manager of the Southwestern System; he 
died in the service. I speak of him only as an example of what the 
engineers, during 1866, 1867, 1868, and 1869, had to face. The line 
was covered by engineers from the Missouri River to the California 
state line, and every party was thoroughly armed and had escorts, but 
many of our best men were killed. 

One of the great problems that confronted our early surveys was 
the crossing of the Black Hills, a spur of the Rocky Mountains. 
There was no trouble in obtaining a line from the summit of the 
range and descending to the west into Laramie Plains, but the coun¬ 
try on the east dropped off so rapidly there was was no stream nor 
any divide we could find that was practicable for a 116-foot grade; 

85 





IIoio We Built The Union Pacific. 


the engineers had examined nearly every stream and every divide. 
The divides from the summit for a long distance down were favor¬ 
able, but where the division of the granite and sedimentary formations 
joined there would be a drop of 500 feet in 1,000, and we could not 
find supporting ground to hold our grade to overcome this great fall. 

In 1865, as I was returning from the Yellowstone country, after 
finishing the Indian campaigns, I took my command along the east 
base of the Black Hills, following up the Chug Water, and so on 
south, leaving my train every day and going on to the summit of the 
Black Hills with a view of trying to discover some approach from the 
east that w T as feasible. When we got down to the crossing of the 
Bodge Pole, I knew the Indians were following us, but I left the 
command with a few cavalrymen and guides, with a view of follow¬ 
ing the country from the Cheyenne Pass south, leaving strict orders 
with the command if they saw smoke signals the}^ were to come to us 
immediately. We worked south from the Chej^enne Pass and around 
the head of Crow Creek, when I looked down into the valley there 
was a band of Indians who had worked themselves in between our 
party and the trains. I knew it meant trouble for us; they were 
either after us or our stock. I therefore immediately dismounted, 
and giving our horses to a couple of men with instructions to keep on 
the west side of the ridge out of sight and gunshot as much as possi¬ 
ble, we took the ridge between Crow Creek and Lone Tree Creek, 
keeping upon it and holding the Indians away from us, as our arms 
were so far-reaching that when they came too near our best shots 
would reach them and they soon saw their danger. 

We made signals for our cavalry, but they did not seem to see them. 
It was getting along in the afternoon, as we worked down this ridge, 
that I began to discover we were on an apparently very fine approach 
to the Black Hills, and one of the guides has stated that I said: 

If we saved our scalps I believed we bad found a railroad line over the 
mountains. 

About 4 o’clock the Indians were preparing to take the ridge in our 
front. The cavalry now saw our signals and soon came to our rescue, 
and when we reached the valley I was satisfied that the ridge we had 
followed was one which we could climb with a maximum grade 
within our charter and with comparatively light work. 

As soon as I took charge of the Union Pacific I immediately wired 
to Mr. James A. Evans, who had charge of that division and who 
had been working on this mountain range for nearly a year, describ¬ 
ing this ridge to him, as I had thoroughly marked it by a lone tree 
on Lone Tree Creek, and by a very steep cut Butte on Crow Creek, 
and a deep depression in the ridge where the granite and sedimentary 
formations joined. He immediately made an examination and dis- 


SG 





Civil Engineer In An Early Day And In Civil War. 


covered a remarkably direct line of only a 90-foot grade reaching from 
the summit to the valley of Crow Creek, near where Cheyenne now 
stands, and this summit I immediately named for my old commander, 
General Sherman. The Union Pacific is constructed over this line 
and it is one of the two 80-foot grades now left on the Union Pacific 
that they were unable to reduce during the reconstruction of the road. 

In building the Union Pacific line it was our endeavor to pass 
through the town of Denver, which at that tirtie was the center of 
the mining interest of Colorado. We therefore placed in the moun¬ 
tains a party under Mr. P. T. Brown, a very promising young engi¬ 
neer, who spent part of the summer and most of the fall endeavoring 
to force his way through the mountains and find a line through the 
middle park and so on west to Salt Lake. The snow in the mountains 
was so deep that even in September parties were driven out of the 
high altitudes. Not receiving very satisfactory reports from this 
party I joined it in November with a view of endeavoring to cross 
the mountains at the head of Bowlder Creek at what is now the Hog 
Back and near where the Moffat Railroad crosses the mountains. We 
were on this mountain November T in a terrific snowstorm, one of 
the worst I ever saw and one we could not make the mules face. I 
saw to save the party I would have to abandon my pack train and 
get into the valley below. We therefore unpacked our mules, cached 
the packs, and let the mules go. They drifted with the storm. After 
a day and night’s hard struggle with the party we got down into 
Bowlder Valley about midnight and into a stamp mill that was being 
built there by Gen. Fitz John Porter, and though we saved the party 
we did not feel very comfortable from the fact that we had left our 
provisions and lost our mules and not knowing that we should ever 
see them again. It is a singular circumstance that on this day I was 
elected to Congress from the Missouri River district in Iowa, but had 
forgotten all about the election until several days after. Henry M. 
Teller, who w r as then a young lawyer in Central City, and our attor¬ 
ney, sent me several telegrams notifying me that I had been elected 
to Congress by the largest majority ever given in the district. The 
mules drifted west into the middle park and around Hot Springs and 
there wintered very well. In the spring we received notice that they 
were there and arranged to have them brought in to us; they seemed 
to be in good condition, and they had lived in that high altitude with¬ 
out food, except what they could get from browsing and the buffalo 
grass they could graze from under the snow. 

In submitting the reports of my chiefs of parties for the year 1806, 
I said: 

I desire to call the attention of the company, especially to the energy and 
perseverance with which all of them have performed their duty. Often threat¬ 
ened by Indian attacks, sometimes without escort, and obliged to examine the 

87 



How We Built The Union Pacific . 


country alone, a portion of the time during the winter, they all have had nar¬ 
row escapes, have had stock stolen, camps attacked, and have been caught in 
heavy snowstorms, in extreme cold without fires; but as yet we have not lost 
any lives, nor any stock of great value. In a country, uninhabitated, 100 to 
1,000 miles away from any aid, and thrown upon their own resources, their 
positions have not been sinecures or their responsibilities light. I have never 
given an order, no matter how difficult to perform, or what the obstacle to over¬ 
come, but they have all obeyed it with that energy and personal interest that 
only under such circumstances can bring success. The young men composing 
the parties are, as a general thing, far above the average, many of them of fine 
education, and who not only perform the duty well, but intelligently. To 
Messrs. Evans, Bates, and House, division engineers, and Messrs. Hills, Brown, 
Hodges and O’Neil, assistant engineers, who have had charge of parties, I am 
under special obligations; also to Mr. Van Lennep, the geologist. They are all 
to take the field for 1867. 

In July, 1867, Mr. Percy T. Brown, whose division extended from 
the North Platte to Green River, was running a line across the 
Laramie Plains. His party was camped on Rock Creek, where they 
were attacked by the Sioux. Brown was out on the line with most 
of the party, but those in camp were able to hold the Indians off; 
but a small party out after wood, under a promising young fellow 
named Clark, a nephew of Thurlow Weed, of New York, was killed 
w T ith one of his escort, and several of the escort were wounded. 

The Indians on the plains were this year very aggressive, and 
were not satisfied with stealing. Brown, on reaching the divide of 
the continent, found it an open prairie, extending some 150 miles 
northeast and southwest and 70 miles east and west. The Rocky 
Mountains had from an elevation of 13,000 feet dropped down to 
one of 7,000 feet into an open plain, and the divide of the continent 
is really a great basin some 500 feet lower than the general level of 
the country. 

Brown, in reconnoitering the country, expecting to find a stream 
leading into the waters of the Pacific, dropped into this basin, and 
in exploring it near its southern rim he struck 300 Sioux Indians 
who were on the war path. He had with him 8 men of his escort, 
and he immediately took possession of an elevation in the basin, and 
there, from 12 o’clock until nearly dark, fought off those Indians. 

Just before dark a shot from one of the Indians hit Brown in the 
abdomen. He begged the men to leave him and save themselves, 
but the soldiers refused to do so. They hac) to give up their horses, 
and as soon as the Indians obtained them they fled, and those 8 sol¬ 
diers made a litter of their carbines and through the tall sagebrush 
for 15 miles that night they packed Brown to La Clede Stage Sta¬ 
tion, thinking to save him, but he died soon after reaching the station. 

In my examination of the surveys across the plains during 1867 
I had with me Gen. John A. Rawlins, General Grant’s chief of staff. 


88 









Gen. J. A. Rawlins and General Dodge find the Bates party in the Red Desert. 


















Civil Engineer In An Early Day And In Civil War. 


General Rawlins’s health was poor; he was threatened with consump¬ 
tion, of which he afterwards died. General Grant wrote me, sug¬ 
gesting that in some one of my trips I take him with me so as to give 
him the benefit of the high, dry air, which it was a great pleasure to 
me to do. He came to me with his aid, Major Dunn, Mr. Rogers, 
and Mr. John E. Corwith, of Galena, and I had Mr. John R. Duff, 
the son of a director of the company, and David Van Lennep, my 
geologist. We had as escort two companies of cavalry under Colonel 
Misner and a company of infantry to guard the trains. 

The Indians w T ere very aggressive during the summer of 1867. 
We were progressing remarkably well with the w T ork when the com¬ 
bined attacks of the Indians along our whole line, not only on our 
surveying parties far west but on our graders, killing our men and 
stealing our stock, for a time virtually blocked up our work. I was 
pushing w T est with this party to overcome these detentions and 
reached the Red Desert. We w T ere then in an unknown country, 
where we expected to find the divide of the continent. We found 
the basin that Brown had discovered, and while I was preparing to 
cross this basin I discovered one of my parties, under Mr. Bates, v r ho 
was running a line from Green River east across the desert. They 
had been three days without water, and had abandoned the wagons, 
and were running, by compass, due east as fast as they possibly could 
in the hope of striking a stream. We discovered them several miles 
west of us when we reached the rim of the basin, and we first thought 
they were Indians, but upon watching them closely I discovered they 
were white men and saw they were in trouble. We made rapidly 
toward them and found them in a deplorable condition; men nearly 
exhausted, tongues swollen, and so weakened physically that they 
could not make much headway. Our opportune finding of them 
saved some of their lives. 

Upon our return trip, after reaching Salt Lake, we followed the 
Bear River up to its northern bend and on to the Snake River by the 
Blacksmith Fork to what is known as Grays Lake and undertook 
to cross the mountains from there directly eastward to the South Pass. 
The country was very rough. The Government at one time had en¬ 
deavored to make a short cut from the South Pass to the Snake River 
by what is known as Landers Cut-off. 

When I reached the west base of the mountains I saw we were 
going to have trouble in getting our trains over. General Rawlins 
had become quite fatigued in the journey, and I was in the habit.of 
taking him and going ahead of the party, fixing our camp where lie 
would be comfortable for the day, and then bringing up the rest of 
our party, escort, and trains. 


89 







E ow We Built The Union Pacific . 


This day I went nearly to the top of the first range, and when 
we raked away the snow to pitch our tents we found the ground thick 
with the mountain strawberry. We had seen a good many grizzly 
bears near Grays Lake, driven from the mountains by the fires, and 
I left positive instructions for no one to go out and follow a grizzly 
or attempt to shoot one. 

The mountains were so steep and rough I went back to bring up 
the trains, which had to be hauled up the mountains with doubling 
up our mules and putting the infantry on prolongs ahead of them. 
About 4 in the afternoon, after we had gotten the trains over the 
roughest of the ground, I returned to camp and found Rawlins and 
Dunn away. I asked the cook where they were, and he said he 
thought they had gone out to follow a grizzly that had passed by the 
camp a short time before. I had with me one of our best guides, 
Sol Gee. Knowing that if they found the bear and shot it there 
would, in all probability, be trouble, I took Gee and we followed 
their trail as rapidly as possible. It was but a short time until we 
heard two shots, and in a few minutes afterwards we saw Rawlins 
and Dunn coming tow T ard us with the greatest speed. I knew then 
they had shot at the bear and had wounded him, and he was follow¬ 
ing them. I said to Sol Gee, who was a sure shot, that I would drop 
below the trail and attract the attention of the bear as he passed; and 
if I fired and missed, he must be sure in his shot or the bear would 
get me. 

As Rawlins and Dunn came up I saw the bear was close to them, 
and I drew the bear’s attention, and he turned toward me, giving me 
a very good shot, but I hit him a little too far back, but did not stop 
him, and he t made for me. Gee waited until he got him face to face 
and then shot and hit him between the e}^es and dropped him. He 
was one of the largest grizzlies I ever saw. We gave the hide and 
claws to Rawlins and his friends. 

General Rawlins, who was a great stickler in the army for obeying 
orders and who was sometimes very strong in his language, turned ' 
to me and, in his most emphatic language, said we ought to have 
let the bear get them for their disobeying my orders, but that he was 
not to blame. It was Major Dunn, who was crazy to kill a grizzly, 
and he was fool enough to let him try it. 

When we reached the South Pass there had been gold discovered 
just north in what was known as the “ Miner’s Delight mines.” The j 
arrival of such a party with so distinguished a person as General ‘ 
Rawlins drew immediate attention to us, and we were given a lunch 1 
and a great deal of consideration. Our guide, Sol Gee, when he got 
to the towns was apt to drink too much, and when we left after our 
lunch in the afternoon I could not find him, and I sent Major Dunn 


90 





CAMP ON SNAKE RIVER RANGE WHERE GRIZZLY BEAR WAS KILLED. 


































































































































































































































Civil Engineer In An Early Day And In Civil War . 


to hunt him up. I told Dunn under no circumstances to let us get 
more than 2 miles away before he joined us, because I knew the In¬ 
dians were in the valley of the Sweetwater and had been doing con¬ 
siderable depredation. We moved on, and I thought no more about 
Dunn or Gee until we had gone 8 or 10 miles, when I discovered 
they were, not with us. It was nearly night, and we went into camp. 
I had discovered fresh Indian signs, and I knew they were watching 
us, and it made me very anxious for the safety of Dunn and Gee. 
I took half a dozen of the best mounted cavalry with me and went 
back, supposing they w T ere still at the miner’s camp. 

I had not gone more than 3 or 4 miles when shots came flying at 
us from the bowlders in the road ahead. I thought it was Indians 
and told Guide Adams, who was with me, to seek cover and try to 
communicate with them. When he called, Gee answered, and when 
we rode up to them we found Dunn and Gee behind the rocks, think¬ 
ing that we were Indians. Gee had told Dunn when he heard us 
coming that their only salvation was to get to cover and fire at us, 
and that in the night it would probably scare the Indians away. 

I asked Dunn why he had not obeyed my orders. He said that 
when he found Gee he was not able to travel, and, of course, like a 
good soldier, he could not leave him. After he got Gee sobered up 
they waited until dark, hoping they could make camp without being 
discovered by the Indians. , 

As we moved down the valley of the Sweetwater we met one or two 
of the mountain men, who informed us that there was a band of Sioux 
in the Seminole Gap near the mouth of the Sweetwater. I knew these 
were the Indians that had been doing the mischief all the summer and 
I was anxious to catch and punish them. Therefore I arranged for 
our cavalry to go around the Seminole Mountains and cut them off or 
attack them as we drove them through the gap toward the south. I 
was certain they had not discovered us and we moved the next morn¬ 
ing very early, but the cavalry failed, to make connections. The 
Indian scouts saw us and got word to the Indian camp and they got 
away, to our great disappointment. 

After we got through the gap going south we discovered a small 
band of buffalo and General Itawlins was very anxious to kill some 
of them, so I took him and about a dozen of the best mounted cav¬ 
alry and the guides and moved in toward the North Platte, so as to 
get to the leeward of the buffalo and also have them between us and 
the train. I left strict orders with the train df they saw any smoke 
signs for the troops to immediately come to us. I was suspicious by 
the action of the buffalo that there might be Indians hunting them. 
We had passed along about 5 miles and gotten well to the leeward 
of the buffalo without their discovering us, when all of a sudden I 

91 




How We Built The Union Pacific. 


saw a band of Indians hidden on a small stream watching us. I 
knew that meant trouble, and I immediately prepared for them and 
made a sign by setting a fire on the ridge for our cavalry to come to 
us. The Indians, seeing this, thought I was trapping them instead 
of their trapping me, and after following us for a time got out, and 
we not only lost the buffalo, but the Indians also. 

In the winter of 1867-68 the end of our track was at Cheyenne. 
During that winter there had assembled there a very large number of 
people; possibly it was the greatest gambling place ever established 
on the plains, and it was full of desperate characters. The town of 
Cheyenne we had claimed, laid out, and leased the lots to the occu¬ 
pants, and organized the local government. There was then no title 
to be obtained to the town, but we treated this as all the towns, claim¬ 
ing it for the company, laying it out into town lots and not allowing 
anyone to locate there without taking an agreement from us allowing 
them to occupy it and agreeing to deed it to them when we got a title. 

There had been established there by the Government Fort D. A. 
Russell, some 2 or 3 miles north of the railroad track, and there was 
in command Gen. J. D. Stevenson, who had served with me during 
the civil war. In my absence these desperate characters got together, 
held a meeting, and jumped the town, refusing to recognize the 
authorities we had put over the town or in any way to comply with 
our orders. They had commenced robbing our trainmen and commit¬ 
ting other depredations that I knew we must stop or lose all control 
of the railroad forces at the end of the track. I immediately wired 
General Stevenson, calling his attention to the condition of affairs 
and asking him to use his troops to bring about order and a recogni¬ 
tion of our authority, and while he had no legal right in the matter 
he turned out his troops as skirmishers and drove every citizen in the 
town to a mile or so south of the track and then held a parley with 
them. He told them that until they were ready to comply with the 
orders and recognize the authority of the railroad company they 
should not go back to their property; that really the land belonged 
to the United States and the railway was occupying it under the Gov¬ 
ernment’s charter. This brought them immediately to terms and 
they immediately made peace, and were allowed to come back to town 
and we afterwards had no trouble with them. I recite this only as 
showing the great aid the Government always gave us in building the 
road. 

In the year of 1868 there was a great competition between the 
Union Pacific building west and the Southern Pacific building east. 
The Union Pacific desired to at least reach Humboldt Wells, and the 
Central Pacific’s great desire was to reach Ogden. The Union Pacific 
continued its work over the AUasatch Mountains throughout the 

92 



Civil Engineer In An Early Day And In Civil War. 


winter, which was a very cold and snowy one, and it cost us as much 
to blast the earth as it did the rock, we paying as high for earth work 
as $3 a cubic yard. 

We laid the track over the Wasatch Range in the dead of winter 
on top of snow and ice, and I have seen a whole train of cars, track, 
and all slide off the bank and into the ditch as a result of a thaw and 
the ice that covered the banks. We built almost as rapidly through 
the winter as we did during the summer, notwithstanding the short, 
cold days and long nights, but it was at an immense cost. We esti¬ 
mated that the work during that winter made an extra cost to the 
road of at least $10,000,000. 

The success of the engineers in the surveying and constructing of 
this road was due mostly to their natural courage and ability. One 
of the instructions given a party when put into the field was that 
the chief of the party must absolutely command it and at all times 
be ready to fight. Another was' the importance of never slacking 
their vigilance, no matter where they were, never being off their 
guard, and all those who obeyed these orders generally took their 
parties through. Those who did not were soon relieved in the field 
or were killed by an attack of Indians. Then again, these engineers 
were all men of ability, every one of them, as far as I know, has 
risen to distinction either in his own profession or in some line of 
business. I know of only two of the chiefs of parties who are still 
living. One, F. S. Hodges, is a bachelor in Boston, who occasionally 
goes out to Salt Lake City and gathers together some of his old 
party, giving them a taste of their old experience by putting them 
back into camp again with a camp dinner and ending with a great 
banquet at some prominent hotel. One of his party, Mr. James R. 
Maxwell, first undertook to locate the line across Salt Lake where 
the road is now built. When I sent him out, I gave him Captain 
Stanbury’s soundings. The Mormons built him a boat; he put his 
party into it, and while he was making the sounding of the lake a 
terrific gale came up that swamped his boat and came very near 
drowning him and his party, and he reported to me that the lake was 
II feet higher than when Stanbury sounded it in 1849; and it is a 
singular fact that it was then at its highest known level, for from 
1870 until 1900 it continually fell, and when the Union Pacific built 
the line across the lake it was 11 feet lower than when the original 
survey was made. The depth of the lake, the weight of the water, 
and the cost of building was beyond us, and we were forced north of 
the lake and had to put in the high grades crossing Promontory 
Ridge. 


93 




How We Built The Union Pacific. 




The other is Mr. James E. Maxwell, living now in Newark, Del. 
He distinguished himself especially in the building of the Central 
Eailroad in Peru, crossing the mountains at an elevation of 15,666 
feet above the sea, the highest railroad in the world. It is of standard 
gauge. Mr. Maxwell is still able to handle any engineering problem 
presented to him. 

The organization for the construction of the Union Pacific Eail¬ 
road was upon a military basis; nearly every man upon it had been 
in the civil war; the heads of most of the engineering parties and all 
chiefs of the construction forces were officers in the civil war; the 
chief of the track-laying force, General Casement, had been a dis¬ 
tinguished division commander in the civil war, and at any moment 
I could call into the field a thousand men, well officered, ready to meet 
any crisis or any emergency. There was no law in the country and 
no court. We laid out the towns, officered them, kept peace, and 
everything went on smoothly and in harmony. Two or three times 
at the end of our tracks a rough crowd would gather and dispute our 
authority, but they were soon disposed of. 

I remember one incident when I was west near Salt Lake receiving 
a dispatch that a crowd of gamblers had taken our terminal point at 
Julesburg and refused to obey the local officers we had appointed 
over it. I wired General Casement to take back his track force, clean 
the place up, and sustain the officers. When I returned to Julesburg, 
I asked General Casement what he had done. He replied, “ I will 
show you.” He took me up to a little rise just beyond Julesburg and 
showed me a small graveyard, saying: “General, they all died in 
their boots, but brought peace.” 

The work of the engineers on the Union Pacific was a very masterful 
one. In the beginning they had no reliable maps nor any knowledge 
of the country, and they explored it until they obtained a line across 
the country over which one locomotive, then as well as now, could 
haul as many cars over the line as two engines on any other of the 
transcontinental lines. They worked summer and winter, rain or 
shine. My yearly report upon the completion of the road describes 
better perhaps than I can now what they accomplished, and is as 
follows: 

They occupied the country extending from the Missouri River to the Califor¬ 
nia state line, and covering a width of 200 miles, north and south, and on the 
general direction of the forty-second parallel of latitude, some 15,000 miles of 
instrumental lines have been run, and over 25,000 miles of reconnoissances made. 

In 1863 and 1864, preliminary surveys were inaugurated, but in 1866 the coun¬ 
try was systematically occupied: and day and night, summer and winter, the 
explorations were pushed forward through dangers and hardships that very 
few, at this day, appreciate, as every mile had to be run within range of the 


94 



Civil Engineer In An Early Day And In Civil War. 


musket, as there was not a moment’s security. In making surveys, numbers of 
our men, some of them the ablest and most promising, were killed; and during 
the construction our stock was run off by the hundred, I might say, by the 
thousand; and as one difficulty after another arose and was overcome, in the 
engineering, running, and construction departments, a new era in railroad build¬ 
ing was inaugurated. 

Each day taught us lessons by which we profited for the next, and our ad¬ 
vances and improvements in the art of railway construction were marked by 
the progress of the work, 40 miles of track having been laid in 1865, 240 in 1867, 
and 260 in 1868, including the ascent to the summit of the Rocky Mountains, 
at an elevation of 8,235 feet above the ocean; and during 1S68 and to May 10, 
1860, 555 miles, all exclusive of side and temporary tracks, of which over 180 
miles were built in addition. 

At Promontory Point, north of Sait Lake, Utah, on May 10, 1869, 
gathered there from the Atlantic and the Pacific the men who made 
possible this great work. They were the few bold spirits who backed 
the enterprise with their fortunes, their credit, and their reputation. 
They spent many millions to meet the clamor and demand of our 
whole nation for speed, and constructed a railroad 2,000 miles long in 
three years, when their own interests, their charter, and the Govern¬ 
ment allowed them ten years to complete the work. So far as it was 
possible for human to see, as a commercial problem, it had few, if 
any, advocates. It was simply considered a military necessity. Some 
day these men will stand in civil life like our leaders in the civil war. 
The engineers and the workmen stood in groups watching the prepa¬ 
rations for the driving of the golden spike which should tie together 
with iron bands this continent. The locomotives from the east and 
from the west were run together and each engineer broke a bottle of 
champagne on their comrade’s machine, and a great glorification of 
the event was celebrated all over the country. On that day, General 
Sherman, not forgetting the engineers and pioneers of this work, sent 
me this dispatch: 

Washington, May 11, I860. 

Gen. G. M. Dodge: 

In common with millions, I sat yesterday and heard the mystic taps of the 
telegraphic battery announce the nailing of the last spike in the great Pacific 
road. Indeed, am I its friend? Yea. Yet, am I to be a part of it, for as early 
as 1S54 I was vice-president of the effort begun in San Francisco, under the 
contract of Robinson, Seymour & Co. As soon as General Thomas makes cer¬ 
tain preliminary inspections in his new command on the Pacific, I will go out 
and, I need not say, will have different facilities from that of 1846, when the 
only way to California was by sail around Cape Horn, taking our ships 106 
days. All honor to you, to Durant, to Jack and Dan Casement, to Reed, and 
the thousands of brave fellows who have wrought out this glorious problem, 
spite of changes, storms, and even doubts of the incredulous, and all the ob¬ 
stacles you have now happily surmounted. 

W. T. Sherman, General. 


95 





How We Built The Union Pacific. 


^ ' 


How well all did their work I leave to the distinguished commis¬ 
sion of engineers appointed by act of Congress to examine, review, 
and report upon the completion of the Union Pacific Railroad, which 
is as follows: 

Taken as a whole, the Union Pacific Railroad has been well constructed. The 
general route for the line is exceedingly well chosen, crossing the Rocky Moun¬ 
tain Ranges at some of the most favorable passes on the continent, and pos¬ 
sessing capabilities for easy grades and favorable alignments unsurpassed by 
any other railway line on similarly elevated grounds. The energy and perse¬ 
verance with which the work has been urged forward, and the rapidity with 
which it has been executed are without parallel in history. In the grandeur 
and magnitude of the undertaking it has never been equaled, and no other line 
compares with this in the arid and barren character of the country it traverses, 
giving rise to unusual inconveniences and difficulties, and imposing the neces¬ 
sity of obtaining almost every requisite of material, of labor, and supplies for 
its construction, from the initial point of its commencement. 

G. Iv. Warden, Brevet Maj. Gen., U. S. A. 

J. Blickensderfer, Jr., Civil Engineer, 

James Barnes, Civil Engineer, 

Special Commissioners Union Pacific Railroad. 

Iii the last five years the Union Pacific and the Southern Pacific 
have been virtually reconstructed under the able management of Mr. 
E. H. Har riman. The Union Pacific in bringing its grades to a 
maximum of 47 feet per mile, excepting the 80-foot grade rising 
the mountains from the east at Cheyenne, and the 80-foot grade 
rising the Wasatch Range west from the town of Echo, and in short¬ 
ening the line some 30 miles, has spent almost, if not fully, as much 
money as it took to construct the road; and the distinguished engi¬ 
neer who had charge of that work is now the chief engineer of the 
Rock Island system, and he pays this tribute to the engineers and 
builders of the original line: 

It may appear to those unfamiliar with the character of the country that the 
great saving in distance and reduction of grade would stand as a criticism of 
•the work of the pioneer engineers who made the original location of the road. 
Such is not the case. The changes made have been expensive and could be 
warranted only by the volume of traffic handled at the present day. Too much 
credit can not be given to Gen. G. M. Dodge and his assistants. They studied 
their task thoroughly and performed it well. Limited by law to a maximum 
gradient of 110 feet to the mile, not compensated for curvature, they held it 
down to about 90 feet per mile. Taking into consideration the existing condi¬ 
tions thirty-five years ago; lack of maps of the country, hostility of the In¬ 
dians, which made the United States troops necessary for the protection of 
surveying parties, difficult transportation, excessive cost of labor, uncertainty 
as to probable volume of traffic, limited amount of money, and necessity to get 
the road built as soon as possible, it can be said, with all our present knowledge 
of the topography of the country, that the line was located with very great 
skill. 


96 









QO 

oc 


►>> 


►—5 


tn 



HUMBOLDT WELLS. 







































































































Civil Engineer In An Early Day And In Civil War . 


Since the public statements of Mr. Harriman and this tribute by 
Mr. Berry, we have heard no more talk of the unnecessary miles of 
road that were built for the purpose of obtaining the Government 
subsidy. 

Upon completion of the Union Pacific Railroad I was called upon 
by the Pennsylvania Railroad interests to organize the construc¬ 
tion company and build the Texas Pacific Railroad from New 
Orleans to San Diego, Cal., and in 1871 we marshaled our forces 
and covered the line with engineers from Marshall, Tex., to San 
Diego, Cal. We were in the same condition in this work that we 
were on the Union Pacific; without any railroad connection, de¬ 
pending upon the Red River for our supplies and materials, and, of 
course, that river went dry, but nevertheless the engineers pushed on 
into the country where they had the Indians, among many other diffi¬ 
culties, to contend with. I put Hurd’s party into the most difficult 
Indian country. He had not been there very long before I received 
a letter from the governor of the State telling me that Hurd had 
attacked and killed some of the friendly bands of Indians out at what 
was known as Sulphur Springs at the foot of the Staked Plains. 
Hurd was too far away for me to communicate with him, but I sent 
him the governor’s letter. He was a man of few words; his work 
always told for itself in his maps and profiles, and lie answered the 
governor’s letter in a very short response, which he sent me to approve 
and forward. In it he stated that the Sulphur Springs was the only 
water within 50 miles of him; when he reached there it was held by 
the Indians, and they refused to let him have any water or allow him 
to approach the springs. They would not even sell it to him, and 
he .said: 

Of course I took the springs. 1 don’t know whether I hurt any Indians or 
not, and I do not care, but I knew better than to go back to General Dodge 
and tell him that I had been forced to abandon my survey by two or three 
hundred barebacked Indians without fighting them. 

That was the last I heard of that complaint. 

On the line through Arizona we had a very noted engineer, Capt. 
R, W. Petriken. He was a graduate of West Point and had been in 
the Engineer Corps during the war. He resigned and took service 
with the railroads, intending to follow railroading as a business, be¬ 
lieving there was greater possibility in it for him than in the army, 
but he was killed after a long fight with a band of Mexican Indians. 

In building the Texas Pacific we went through an epidemic of 
cholera and one of yellow fever, and were subject at every town and 
every county line to shotgun quarantine; and notwithstanding that 


S. Doc. 447, 61-2—10-7 


97 





How We Built The Union Pacific. 


most of the engineers were from the North, they all stayed on the 
work. 

I remember in 1873 when we were rushing to close the tracks in 
Texas, coming from the East and West to save our land grant, the 
epidemic of yellow fever was upon us, and every morning those of us 
who were at the end of the track could see numerous corpses taken 
out of the working gangs and buried in the dump, and it took a brave, 
determined man of great moral courage, who was under no obliga¬ 
tions except that of duty, to stay and fight it out. 

I remember one young engineer who was setting grade and centers 
for the track layers. He lived in the cars that housed the convicts 
that were laying the track, who, no matter how much they w anted to 
leave, could not; he went out on his work promptly every morning 
and could see the progress of the fever by the number of convicts 
taken out and buried in the dump, and that it was only a question of 
time when it would have him in its grip. I thought it possible he 
might leave us, so one morning I walked out and spoke to him, asking 
him how he and his men were feeling. He said very quietly they 
had considered the situation, and they proposed to stay on the job 
until we connected the tracks, but he stated: 

Then I shall start on the first train for God’s country and never shall come 
back to this. 

I thanked him for his determination to stay, and he stated that 
he had been employed on the job for the season and he did not pro¬ 
pose to run because some others had; he was a specimen of the en¬ 
gineers who went South with us. A great many of them had the 
yellow fever; some of them died, but they all showed an esprit de 
corp and an interest in the enterprise that would be a good object 
lesson to many who are on similar work to-daj^. 

As soon as the tracks were joined I gave all the engineers who had 
come from the North a leave of absence, but very few of them took 
advantage of it. 

During the years from 1870 to 1874 the line was determined and 
located through to California. Work was commenced at San Diego 
and some 500 miles was built during that time in Texas, but the Jay 
Cook failure stopped us, and it was not completed through to Cali¬ 
fornia until 1883, and to-day three of the great railroads of the 
country occupy the line that was intended at that time for only one. 
They are the Texas Pacific, the Southern Pacific, and the Santa Fe. 
It is a singular fact that the same engineers and the same foremen 
who had joined the tracks at Promontory Point in 1869 met on the 
plains at Sierra Blanco, Tex., in 1883, and joined there the tracks 
that united the second continental line across the continent, but under 


98 



Civil Engineer In An Early Bay And In Civil War. 


entirely different circumstances. There were no bands, no crowds, 
no speeches, and no champagne. It was simply the engineers and 
foremen of the track-laying forces that shook hands at this great 
event, and it created very little notice or comment. 

There has been a general belief throughout the country that it 
was a very easy problem to build a railroad; that the railroads were 
overcapitalized, which recent investigation has demonstrated to be 
untrue. In my travels I have seen men riding in a Pullman car that 
carried a valet, a maid, a porter, and a conductor, which these people 
generally kept busy all the time, look out of the window and express 
the opinion that it was easy work or virtually no work to build a 
railroad through the country they were passing, and make com¬ 
ments on what it represented and what it should cost, and I often 
used to think as I listened to them, if they had the experience of 
the builders; first, as chief of a party to spy out a line, perhaps 
alone in an Indian country; then followed by the young engineer, 
carrying a rifle on one shoulder and a transit on the other, camping 
where his day’s work ended; then the bold spirits who furnished the 
money to first construct the road, that would need probably to be 
carried ten or twenty years before it brought any income, and then 
by the operating department, who had to reconstruct it two or three 
times and put millions upon millions into it to bring its commercial 
business and the luxury of its transportation up to our date, he would 
take an entirely different view of the enterprise. 

I thank God that the criticisms of the years have finally aroused 
the railroad world to educate the people and demonstrate to them 
what the transportation of this country has cost in lives, labor, and 
money, and what benefits it has brought to the nation. 


99 






* 











A 

mBi 






WMHMMMttNMMMMMM 










CHIEF ENGINEER S OFFICE, UNION PACIFIC RAILWAY, OMAHA, NEBRASKA, 1866-1870. 





















ADDRESS AT A BANQUET OF THE COMMERCIAL CLUB, 
OMAHA, NOVEMBER 10, 1906, GIVEN IN HONOR 
OF MAJ. GEN. G. M. DODGE AND 
MRS. JOHN A. LOGAN. 


At a banquet given by the Commercial Club, at Omaha, on Novem¬ 
ber 10, 1906, in honor of Maj. Gen. Grenville M. Dodge and Mrs. 
John A. Logan, in replying to remarks of Dr. George L. Miller, 
General Dodge made the following response: 

It must be evident to all present how embarrassing it is to me, and 
how difficult it is to express my thanks for all the kind words and 
compliments that have been paid me. Omaha and Nebraska have 
always had kindly feelings toward me, and never let an opportunity 
pass to show it, and when I see surrounding me so many of my 
friends and supporters in my young days, when I was struggling here 
to build and develop an empire, I feel that it is impossible to thank 
you as you deserve. 

You must appreciate the fact that when two old friends like Doctor 
Miller and myself get together, that as the years go by the apprecia¬ 
tion of each other grows in geometrical progression. The credit that 
he gives me belongs largely to others, who spent their time, their 
brains, their money, and their credit in developing the country west 
of the Lakes. 

As you all know, since I was 19 years old my entire life has been 
spent in the upbuilding and development of the country west of the 
Lakes, and in the line of my profession it has been my great good 
fortune to know and be with the groups of men whose time, credit, 
and fortunes have been spent for the increasing of population and 
in making an empire, where, when I began, there were only 50,000 
people in Chicago, and not many more than that from there west to 
the Pacific. These men have never received the credit they were 
entitled to. I have in mind four groups in this work, and I will 
name them. 

The first were Farnam & Sheffield, who built the first road west of 
Chicago to the Mississippi River, one of whom you have honored 
by giving his name to one of your principal thoroughfares. On the 
completion of this work Mr. T. C. Durant joined Mr. Farnam in 
building the Mississippi and Missouri Railway, now the Rock Island, 
across Iowa. 


101 



How We Built The Union Pacific . 


The next were the Ameses and their New England following, and 
to them monuments should be raised, as it was to their nerve and the 
use of their unlimited credit that is most due the success of the 
Union Pacific,' and I never look back upon their work that I do not 
consider the act of Congress, which drove Oakes Ames out of their 
halls and to his death, one of the most unjust acts ever passed by 
Congress, when he should have had their thanks and the credit due 
him, and which some day he will receive for his unfailing support 
of us all who were engaged on that great work. Very few of you 
know how many times we were close to failure and he saved us. 
1 remember once when I wrote Oakes Ames that we must have 
money or the work would stop, that he answered to go ahead, that 
it should not stop if it took the shovel shop to keep it going. Again, 
when the question came whether the credit of the company should 
be impaired or that the standing and credit of the Ameses should 
suffer, he said: “ Stand by the company and let the Ameses take 
care of themselves,” and their commercial standing and credit did 
suffer. It was these men, aided by Dillon, Durant, and their follow¬ 
ing that were the pioneers along the forty-second parallel of latitude, 
and to whom our great prosperity to-day is mostly due. 

The next group was headed by Thomas A. Scott in that great 
development of the Southwest, and in projecting and partially 
building the Southern Line to the Pacific. He was surrounded and 
supported by that remarkable body of men identified with the in¬ 
terests of the Pennsylvania Railway. They were Thompson, Roberts, 
Walters, Houston, Baird, McCullough, and others, the descendants 
of whom are prominent in all the affairs of the Pennsylvania to-day. 
In the three years’ work on that line they had spent $10,000,000 with¬ 
out selling a bond or share of stock. The Jay Cook failure came 
and halted the work. Scott was in England and had raised the money 
to take us to the Pacific and the papers were waiting a final signa¬ 
ture, when like a clap of thunder out of a clear sky came the failure 
of Jay Cook and virtually put the whole crowd in bankruptcy. We 
were all called to Philadelphia. I owed more than a million of dollars 
in Texas and the shock was so far-reaching that it stunned everyone. 
I remember this group of men stayed all day and nearly all night in 
Scott’s room at the Philadelphia headquarters and considered and 
discussed the situation. The question was, Shall we save the prop¬ 
erty or ourselves? I told them of the outcome of a similar meeting 
when Ames said, “ Save the road and let the individuals go to the 
wall,” and Scott answered that is what we will do, and these men 
sat down and assumed the entire debt of $10,000,000 or more, put¬ 
ting out their individual notes, known as the five-name paper and 
the three-name paper, part of us signing the five-name paper and 

102 



Address At Banquet Of The Commercial Club, Omaha . 


the more wealthy and those of better credit the three-name paper. 
This was a pretty bold movement, when not one of them could really 
say or know whether at that moment he was worth one cent. After 
signing these notes they distributed them to each one of us to take 
them to such financial institutions as we might know and to try 
to sell them. One million was assigned to me of the five-name paper, 
of which I was a signer. I had no idea where I could raise one cent 
on it. I thought everyone would look upon us and our credit as I 
knew our financial condition to be and would judge the value of our 
notes accordingly. I took mine to New York City; I considered it 
to be the hardest and most uncertain problem that I ever had to 
solve. I had in New York a long time a small account with Gilman & 
Son, prominent private bankers. I called on them as soon as I 
reached New York, and met Mr. Gilman, a very astute, clear-headed, 
calculating banker, and showed him the paper. He read the five 
names, looked up to me and said, “ Why, that looks like pretty good 
paper; I think our clients would like to have some of it,” and asked 
me to leave it with him. You can imagine my feelings, and how my 
barometer went up. I immediately handed over to him the million. 
The next day when I went to see him he stated that they would take 
it and asked if I could get any more. I saw then what it was to 
a man to have a good name, a good business standing, and good credit, 
and I have never forgotten it. That paper was all paid off before it 
was due. Our work halted then in Texas from 1874 until 1880, when 
Mr. Scott becoming si,ck induced Jay Gould to buy his interest. 
Mr. Gould and his following then took hold of the property and 
built from that time on what is known as the Southwest System, 
some 10,000 miles of road. He, like the rest of them, planted his 
money and his credit to build up and develop a partially inhabited 
country, but did not live to see the full fruition of his plans, but his 
children have. With Mr. Gould and his associates I was connected 
from 1874 to 1884, and I take pleasure in paying my tribute to him 
and giving him the credit he is entitled to, for he was more abused, 
slandered, and vilified than all the rest combined. He spent his 
life in opening up a vast territory to the new population without 
receiving any immediate benefit from his investment, but it proved 
that his judgment was correct. Personally I never was with a more 
reliable and considerate man than Jay Gould. I spent many, many 
millions in building the Southwest System, but as far as I know I 
never had a dozen letters from him. Everything was done by word 
of mouth or by telegram. When we discussed any question and 
came to a conclusion and Mr. Gould said, “ General, we will go 
ahead,” or do this or that, no matter what it meant or into what 
difficulties we got, I never had doubts as to where Jay Gould would 

103 



How We Built The Union Pacific. 


stand. He never went back on the support of me or tried to evade, 
as some others did, the responsibilities he had assumed. When the 
projects looked unprofitable, he had plenty of opportunities to avoid 
great losses, but he stood by, no matter who deserted, and when I 
compare where he put his brains and millions with those who have 
criticised him so severely, who would not invest a cent, except it 
was secured and brought a safe interest, but he year after year had 
new faith in the future outcome of our interest in the West, I feel it 
was to him that was due the credit instead of the criticisms. I learned 
the value of the brains, push, and combinations of Jay Gould, and I 
say all honor to him, and you of the West should revere and honor his 
work and name. 

The third group was the California giants, Huntington, Stanford, 
Hopkins, Crocker, and their associates. Their work on the Pacific 
was a duplicate of Ames, Scott, and Gould, and though at times we 
were in sharp competition, in long, bitter fights, I had the personal 
friendship of all of them. Their leader was Huntington, and he was 
a wonderful man. For years we were in sharp competition, but you 
may hunt the records of all he either said or did and you won’t find 
a word uttered against me. He always spoke in the highest terms of 
me, even when it hurt his owrn case, and in after years we were close 
friends. He was a great man, and has built great monuments to 
himself from the Atlantic to the Pacific. I remember, I think it was 
in the eighties in one of the financial panics, we were both borrowing 
large sums of money from the same bank in New York. The com¬ 
panies! was connected with were weak, while his were very strong 
financially, and when the bank called upon us for additional security 
we could not always put it up promptly. One day the bank called 
upon us for quite a large addition to what we had up for one of our 
companies, and I told them it was impossible for us to meet the 
demand, and they said they would be obliged to sell out our loans, 
and I was in great distress, for I knew it meant bankruptcy for the 
company. They said that when they called upon Mr. Huntington for 
additional securities he would bring down double for what they 
asked. That evening I met Mr. Huntington and told him our trou¬ 
bles and what the bank said. His eyes brightened. He said: “ Sell 
you out, will they! Well, that is just what w r e want, and is what we 
have been trying to do ourselves for six months.” He said: “ Gen¬ 
eral, you go down in the morning and tell them if they can sell your 
securities to do so, and when they get through let them sell mine.” 
I saw the point; I called at the bank, told them that I was at the end 
of my rope and to sell, and when they got through selling mine, Mr. 
Huntington said to sell his. That settled that question, and their 
efforts from then on were not to try to squeeze us, but to help us 

104 



Address At Banquet Of The Commercial Club, Omaha. 


through. The fact is, there was no sale for any security, which Hunt¬ 
ington and the bank knew. 

The groups of men I have mentioned have never received the credit 
that they were entitled to and the great field of their work should 
remember them and monuments should be raised to their memory. 

I see Mr. Meeker is here trying to raise monuments to mark the old 
Oregon trail which I have traveled over so many times, but the men 
that I have mentioned have marked it with bands of steel, and now it 
reaches from the Missouri to the Pacific, and you can stand beside it 
at any place during any hour of the day and you will see trains, pas¬ 
senger and freight, passing, and they have made it the most noted 
route of transportation in the world. I hope Meeker will succeed 
in raising monuments for the old wagon trail; it is commendable to 
try to pass into history the work of those crossing the continent in ’49. 

Now comes the group of workers following and sustaining the 
efforts of the great men I have mentioned. Every community has 
them; right here in Omaha you have many noted ones. I see some 
around this table. Who has forgotten the work of Dr. George L. 
Miller, who all his life was working to build up this country and 
whose support and friendship is so dear to me? With him were 
Saunders, Hanscom, Hitchcock, Morton, and hundreds of others, and 
the new generation that is coming after us should never let their work 
and names be forgotten. 

I have detained you far longer than I intended, but when you say 
a word about these early great events you never know when or where 
to stop, and once more I thank you from the bottom of my heart. 

It is a great pleasure to have here with me and to see you honor the 
wife and daughter of that comrade of mine who in war and peace 
was such a great friend. No matter whether it was his magnetism 
in battle or his eloquence in Congress, in all the years I knew him he 
was ready with both to aid and defend me with any work I was 
engaged, and his good wife stood by to do more if possible, and no 
one honors more than I do the memory of my old comrade, John A. 
Logan, and no one is truer to me than his good wife and his family. 


105 








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ADDRESS AT UNVEILING OF MONUMENT TO MAJ. 
MARSHALL F. HURD, DENVER, COLO. 


Marshall Farnam Hurd was born in Scipio, Cayuga County, N. Y., 
in 18*23. His father married Abbie Farnam, sister of Henry Farnam, 
of New Haven, Conn., the builder of the Rock Island Railroad, and 
under whose auspices the first surveys were made for the Union 
Pacific Railway in 1852-1860. 

Hurd’s father and mother died within a few months of each other, 
leaving three small children—Irwin Newton Hurd, afterwards a 
Presbyterian minister, now deceased; Florence A. Ilurd, afterwards 
Hoyt, deceased, and Marshall Farnam Hurd, a baby only a few 
months old. 

The children were separated, and Marshall Farnam Hurd was 
brought up in his uncle’s family. The uncle was a noted engineer 
in New York, and had charge of the Lockport Locks in the Erie 
Canal, also of much other work in the State of New York. From 
him Hurd obtained his education and practice as a civil engineer. 
His first work in his profession was in New York State, and after¬ 
wards on the Rock Island Railroad in the State of Illinois. At the 
beginning of the civil war he was at Muscatine, Iowa. 

On July 24, 1861, he enlisted at Burlington, Iowa, in Company I, 
Seventh Iowa Volunteers. On August 23 he was transferred to 
Company A. On August 25, 1861, he was promoted to fourth cor¬ 
poral, and on July 28, 1863, was made second corporal. He was 
taken prisoner November 7, 1861, at the battle of Belmont and was 
exchanged October 17, 1862. He was mustered out of the service 
August 9, 1864, by reason of expiration of his term of service. 

I first knew Hurd at Corinth, Miss., in the fall or winter of 1862, 
where I was in command. I called for details from the different 
commands for engineers. Hurd was one of the men that reported 
to me, and I put him in charge of a portion of the force that was 
building fortifications around Corinth. From that time until he 
was mustered out he followed his profession in the army, especially 
in the work which fell to the Sixteenth Army Corps in rebuilding the 
Memphis and Charleston, Nashville and Decatur, Mobile and Ohio, 
and other railroads. Realizing how competent he was as an engineer, 
every effort was made by myself and my superior officers to have 


107 



How We Built The Union Pacific. 


Hurd given a commission, but, being detailed from his regiment, 
he could get no indorsement from it, and we failed to obtain a com¬ 
mission for him from the United States; therefore he served all the 
time, although only an enlisted man, as civil engineer in charge of 
men, and even officers. Everyone recognized him as a commissioned 
officer, many, I believe, not even knowing that he was not commis¬ 
sioned. He was called “ Major,” and the engineers of the other 
corps and divisions he came in contact with always recognized him 
and treated him as a commissioned officer. He was especially effi¬ 
cient in throwing up entrenchments in front of the enemy. He was 
utilized mostly by the Sixteenth Army Corps, although often de¬ 
tailed by the commanders of the army with the Sixteenth Army 
Corps Pioneer Corps, which consisted of about 1,500 detailed men 
and negroes, and was probably the most efficient construction corps 
in either Grant’s or Sherman’s armies. He was known throughout 
the army as an officer who, when he was on the line building intrench- 
ments under fire, no matter what the circumstances were, stayed with 
his work, however fiercely attacked. He turned his pioneer corps, 
largely made up of enlisted men, into fighting men, and whenever 
we saw him come from his work with any portion of his pioneer corps 
when attacked, we knew it was because he was driven out by a su¬ 
perior force. Other pioneer corps would often come out when 
simply attacked, not being able to hold their men to the work, but 
Hurd never did, and in this way he became favorably known in the 
Army of the Tennessee. 

Hurd left me in August, 1864, in front of Atlanta, to be mustered' 
out. Not being able to obtain promotion, he went back to his pro¬ 
fession and began work on the Union Pacific Railway under S. B. 
Reed, who was division engineer of the road at that time. After 
the war, in 1866, I found Hurd upon the Union Pacific Railway, 
and during the construction of the work he was used almost entirely 
in the construction forces. Mr. S. B. Reed had charge of the con¬ 
struction work for the contractors, and Hurd generally worked under 
his direction, though at times he was used to examine and make 
difficult locations. 

When I was building the Union Pacific Railway in 1867 Hurd 
had charge of the division crossing the Black Hills from Cheyenne 
west, and one time when I was in Cheyenne he started out with pro¬ 
visions for his party. I gave him a company of Pawnee Indians, who 
were on the line as escort for engineering parties and construction 
forces with me. Accompanying him was Silas Seymour, consulting 
engineer of the Union Pacific Railway. When they reached what is 
known as Granite Canyon the Pawnees discovered a party of Crows 
who had just stolen the stock from one of the grading camps, and they 

108 










































































































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ipi 

«Y: 


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•:-$5S$3s 

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if 


THOUSAND-MILE TREE, WEBER CANYON. 







Unveiling Of Monument To Maj. M. F. Hurd. 


immediately left Hurd with his teams and provisions and started for 
the Indians. Hurd saw nothing more of them, but there were other 
Indians near him and he immediately corralled his train and pre¬ 
pared to protect it with his teamsters, sending word to me where he 
was and how he was situated. The Indians saw his preparations and 
did not attack him. A force was sent to his aid and he moved on. 
The Pawnee Indians returned to Crow Creek, where Cheyenne is 
now located, bringing with them several scalps, and evidently ex¬ 
pecting great praise for what they had done, and when I cen¬ 
sured them for deserting Hurd they were utterly disgusted, but they 
made the nights hideous for a week with their war dances over their 
fights and scalps. 

When I left the Union Pacific Railway to go to Texas to take 
charge of the building of the Texas and Pacific Railway I took 
Hurd with me and placed him in charge of the party that was to make 
a survey across the Staked Plains to El Paso, knowing that it would 
be a difficult country and dangerous on account of the roaming bands 
of Indians that were upon it. Hurd, with his party, reached what are 
known as Sulphur Springs, at the foot of the Staked Plains, and 
found a band of Indians in charge of those springs. There was no 
water from that point to the Pecos River, some 150 miles away. Hurd 
opened negotiations with the Indians with a view of obtaining water, 
but they refused to let him have it, and he immediately formed his 
party, which was armed, and made an attack upon the Indians, and 
drove them away from the place. There were at least 200 of them. 
Hurd made no report of this to me, but a complaint was made to the 
governor of the State of Texas, who sent to me for an explanation. 
As soon as I could reach Hurd I sent the complaint to him, and he 
answered it with a few lines. He said that he found the Indians 
there, and that they would not share the water with him or allow 
him to go to the springs, so he attacked them and they immediately 
ran away. Whether he hurt any of them he did not know or care. He 
said he knew it would never do for him to return to me and make a 
report, that he could not obtain this water, unless he had made an 
effort to do so. His reports on his work were always short, giving 
but little description unless instructed to do so. He always relied 
upon his maps and profiles to indicate his work. 

After the completion of the Texas and Pacific surveys in 1874, 
Hurd went north and was employed upon different roads. In the 
eighties he, with his uncle, S. B. Reed, was employed by the Canadian 
Pacific Railway in locating lines over and through the mountain 
division, and much of his work there stands as remarkable examples 
of mountain location, and a part of the Canadian Pacific Railway 
crossing the Rocky Mountains is built upon lines that he located. 

109 




How We Built The Union Pacific. 


In 1886, when I commenced extending the Fort Worth and Denver 
City Railway to Denver, after putting my forces in Texas in the 
field, I went to Denver on the cars in the spring of 1887. As I stepped 
off the train the first person I saw standing on the platform was 
Hurd. We were both astonished to meet each other. The first ques¬ 
tion I asked Hurd was what he w T as doing. He answered that he had 
just come off some survey, and was at liberty. I told him to imme¬ 
diately proceed to Trinidad and get an outfit and make a recon- 
noissance for me from the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway 
east along the summit of the Raton Range, and find me the best pass 
over that range of mountains on as direct a line as possible from 
Trinidad to Tascosa, Tex., and to be ready to report to me within 
two w r eeks in Trinidad. When I drove through to Trinidad I found 
Hurd waiting there for me. He said that he had found a good pass 
and believed he could locate a line through the mountains on a 1 per 
cent grade. I told him to organize a party immediately and make the 
location, and he accompanied me through what was then known as 
Emory Gap to show me the line he had selected. I approved it, and 
he made a remarkably fine location with a 1 per cent equated grade. 

After the completion of this work Hurd was employed on some of 
the surveys in the Rocky Mountains for other companies until his age 
became such that he could no longer keep the field. 

In 1874 Hurd married Maggie Fitzsimmons at Ottumwa, Iowa. 
She died in 1886 and is buried in Ottumwa. She was a lovely, good 
character, a great comfort to Hurd, and her death was a severe loss 
to him. Only a few months after the death of his wife his sister, 
Mrs. Hoyt, died. She was always very near to Hurd, and the double 
loss was very hard upon him. He said at the time, “ I wonder who 
will be with me when I go.” 

Hurd lived simply; he was never a money maker. He never seemed 
ambitious to make money, only to do his duty in whatever position 
was assigned him; never Avas particular about his salary, taking what¬ 
ever was given him. His reputation in camp was that he could keep 
and ration a party on less money than any engineer that was ever in 
my service. It was said of him that all he needed to keep himself 
alive was tobacco. I remember in driving across the country in 1887 
from Trinidad to Tascosa, Tex., that the person I had assigned to put 
up the provisions for us had provided only sandwiches, which, of 
course, became so dry in a few days that we could not eat them. I ex¬ 
pected to obtain something for my party to eat when I reached 
Hurd’s camp. When I arrived at the camp Hurd was out on the line, 
but I asked the cook if he had anything to eat, and he said “ No; ” that 
they had just sent the teams to Trinidad for provisions. I asked why 
they had not sent before, and he said the reason was that the “ old 


110 



Unveiling Of Monument To Maj. M. F. Hurd, 


man ” had not run out of tobacco, and was never known to send for 
provisions so long as tobacco lasted, so we had to continue on our 
trip, living upon an antelope that I happened to kill the next day, 
and occasionally a few birds that we shot on the prairies. 

Hurd was always held in high esteem by all the engineers he 
worked with. He was very modest and reticent, and it was hard to 
keep him in conversation, but his work was always complete and sat¬ 
isfactory, and he would work a party longer and under more difficult 
circumstances than any engineer I ever knew. 

It is seldom that the work of such a man as Hurd is recognized. 
People forget that it is the brains, energy, and self-sacrifice of such 
men that have developed the great West and made it the empire it is, 
and it is for this reason that I have felt that the simple tribute I pay 
him is due to him for his long and faithful service with me. 

During the latter part of his life the home of Hurd was in Denver, 
and it is in that city that he was laid to rest. His grave is marked by 
a simple shaft, the inscriptions on which record concisely the work of 
his life. They are as follows: 

Marshall Farnam Hurd. Died March 4, 1903, aged 80 years. Enlisted in 
Company A, Seventh Iowa Volunteers, August 28, 1863, and served during the 
civil war. • A brave, able, and faithful comrade; a prominent civil engineer, 
modest but never failing to accomplish any work he was assigned to. Many of 
his mountain railway locations will stand as a monument to his skill and 
adaptability to such difficult work. 

Engineer Second Division, Sixteenth Army Corps. 

Division engineer, Union Pacific Railway, Texas and Pacific Railway, Cana¬ 
dian Pacific Railway, Fort Worth and Denver City, and other railways. 

This monument is erected by his comrade, Maj. Gen. Grenville M. Dodge in 
testimony of his many years of loyal and faithful service under him. 


Ill 















JULESBURG STAGE STATION, WYOMING, 1867. 















ADDRESS ON “THE PIONEERS AND DEVELOPMENT 
OF THE WEST.” 

Given at a Banquet March 10, 1906, in Omaha. 


When a voice called me up on the telephone and informed me that 
this club desired to give me a luncheon at which I could meet some of 
my old friends, I was surprised and rather objected, but the voice 
took me back to early days, and I thought if those who were with 
me then carried their friendship so long and desired to see me, it 
was a great honor and satisfaction to me, and I accepted with great 
pleasure. 

Naturally, when I meet you here under such circumstances my 
mind carries me back to the early fifties, when there was no Omaha 
and no Nebraska. The first time I crossed the Missouri River, w T ith 
a small engineering party, I was greeted on this side by Indians. No 
white man lived here and no one in my party probably had ever seen 
an Indian before. My duties as chief of the party were to look up 
the country ahead, and the young boy who ran the party is a citizen 
to-day of Omaha. He was with me many years, an able, conscien¬ 
tious, hard-working, faithful man, to whom I owe much, for he 
faithfully filled all his positions. He is w T ell known in this city, 
and I am glad to say has been honored by it; I speak of Mr. J. E. 
House. 

I rode out to the Elkhorn River alone, leaving House to follow. 
On arriving at the Elkhorn I was tired, unsaddled to give my horse 
a chance to graze, and lay down to take a nap. I was aroused by the 
neighing of my horse, and looking across the valley saw a Pawnee 
Indian taking him as fast as he could force him along toward the 
river. Naturally I was frightened, and hardly knew what to do; but 
instinct told me I must have my horse, and grabbing my rifle I started 
out toward the Indian, hollowing at the top of my voice. The pony 
was evidently as frightened at the Indian as I was, and was stubborn 
in his movements, and the Indian finally dropped him and fled across 
the Elkhorn. 

Ten or twelve years afterwards, when I was in command of this 
department, and was ordered to open the different mail and stage 
lines across the continent, which had been closed for some months by 
the Indians, I raised a battalion of Pawnees to aid me as scouts, and 
S. Doc. 447, 61-2—10-8 113 



How We Built The Union Pacific, 


placed in command of them Major North, a very valuable officer, and 
they were of great service to me. The Indian who attempted to steal 
my horse was one of the battalion, and stated to Major North that I 
made so much noise that I scared the pony and himself so that he got 
away from me as fast as possible and never stopped running until he 
reached the Pawnee village across the Platte. 

On my return to the party I found it encamped on the emigrant 
road leading from Florence to the Elkhorn, at the crossing of the 
Big Papillion. During the day the Indians had been helping them¬ 
selves and the party was in a far from happy state of mind—in fact, 
the Indians had actual possession of the camp—and you can see my 
introduction to Nebraska was anything but a satisfactory one. 

Now, if I should try to portray to you or anyone the experiences, 
the trials, and the sufferings of the picket line of settlement and ex¬ 
plorations in those days, you would declare it more fiction than fact. 
Early friendships made under such circumstances are calculated to 
last, and it is one of the great gratifications of my life that the ties 
that bound us together never have been sundered. I can not tell you 
anything of Omaha to-day, but probably no one has a better knowl¬ 
edge of the circumstances and facts that founded Omaha as a future 
great city. If you knew them all, you could see upon what slender 
threads at times its existence depended. Omaha, as a city, was de¬ 
termined long before it was settled. It came from the settlement 
of the location on the Missouri River of the surveys made under the 
direction of Henry Farnam and William Sheffield far in advance of 
any settlement of this territory. It fell to my lot, under the direc¬ 
tion of that distinguished engineer and more distinguished citizen, 
Peter A. Dey, to make the first survey across the State of Iowa and 
to determine where in all probability a line would end upon the 
Missouri River in this parallel of latitude and where any railroad 
being built west would leave this river. None of you know the inter¬ 
ests involved and the matters raised in determining that point. My 
survey demonstrated that the true engineering and commercial line 
crossing Iowa should come down the Mosquito and end at Council 
Bluffs, and going west the line should cross to the Platte Valley and 
up that to the mountains, and so on west. The financial interests in 
Iowa were favorable to a line running down the Pigeon and crossing 
to Florence; another diversion was by Bellevue, another south of the 
Platte, and a fourth crossing at the mouth of the Boyer, and all these 
lines I examined. 

Before my surveys had been finally determined the parties inter¬ 
ested had planted their stakes at Florence and announced that as the 
crossing place of the Missouri River. My reports were sustained by 
Mr. Dey, and finally the decision made was reversed and the crossing 


114 



“ The Pioneers And Development Of The West/’ 


determined to be opposite this place. This being determined, I was 
authorized to commence work at Council Bluffs, provided I could 
obtain local aid, and Pottawattamie County gave me $300,000 in 
bonds and Mr. Farnam furnished the funds for doing the grading 
and what work was done up to the time that all work in the State 
was stopped on account of the panic. There is no doubt that the 
final determination of what is now known as the Rock Island Railway 
crossing the Missouri River was what first drew the attention of 
people to Omaha and that brought to the Bluffs every railroad survey 
at that time being made across the State, and I think there are men 
at this table who will say to you that that was the real first beginning 
of Omaha. 

In 1859, if I recollect rightly, on my way from reconnoissances 
west with my party, which had been out the entire summer, I camped 
my party in Council Bluffs and went to the Pacific House. At that 
time Abraham Lincoln was visiting the Bluffs. He heard of my 
return from my surveys and sought me out at the Pacific House, and 
on the porch of that hotel he sat with me for two hours or more and 
drew out of me all the facts I had obtained in my surveys and natu¬ 
rally my opinion as to the route for a railroad west and as to the 
feasibility of building it. I thought no more of this at the time than 
that possibly I had been giving away secrets that belonged to my 
employers in this work. 

In 1863, while in command of the district of Corinth, Mississippi, 
I received a dispatch from General Grant to proceed to Washington 
and report to the President. No explanation coming with dispatch, 
I was a little alarmed, for there had come to me at Corinth a great 
many negroes and I had placed them in what was known as a contra¬ 
band camp and had placed over them certain soldiers as guards. 
This caused me a good deal of annoyance and trouble. The white 
soldiers did not like the duty and took every opportunity to annoy 
the negroes, even in some cases going as far as to shoot them. The 
superintendent of the camp was Chaplain Alexander, of an Ohio 
regiment, a very able and excellent man, and he suggested one day 
to me that he believed that negroes would be better to guard the 
contraband camp than white soldiers. I authorized him to raise one 
or two companies and I armed them, solely for the purpose of guard¬ 
ing these negroes. I had no authority to do this and I did not at 
the time appreciate the importance that was to be given to it. There 
were many protests against this, and in the command there was con¬ 
siderable opposition to it, and I thought that my call to Washington 
was possibly to be called to account for this act. 

When I reached Washington and reported to the President I soon 
ascertained that I was there for a consultation in regard to the eastern 


115 



How We Built The Union Pacific. 


terminus of the Union Pacific Railway. Pie had remembered his con¬ 
versation with me on the Pacific House porch, and under the law 
it had been made his duty to determine the eastern terminus of the 
Union Pacific road, and those of you who remember that time know 
what pressure was brought to bear on the President to name different 
points far north and far south of this. After a long conversation 
with me, obtaining my views fully and the reasons for them, the 
President finally determined to make it, as you all know, on the 
western border of Iowa, opposite this city. That decision, in my 
opinion, settled beyond all question the future of your city and your 
State. 

I wish to say here that while my surveys and my conclusions may 
have been of great benefit to you, still they were made because there 
was no question, from an engineering point of view, where the line 
crossing Iow T a and going west from this river, should cross the Mis¬ 
souri River, and it was also my conclusion that it was the commercial 
line. The Lord had so constructed the country that any engineer 
who failed to take advantage of the great open road from here west 
to Salt Lake would not have been fit to belong to the profession; 600 
miles of it up a single valley without a grade to exceed 15 feet; the 
natural pass over the Rocky Mountains, the lowest in all the range, 
and the divide of the continent, instead of being a mountain summit, 
has a basin 500 feet below the general level. It was a gratification 
to me at the time to have the support of all the people in the vicinity 
of this country in my views. There is no telling how much influence 
it had and weight it carried, and without being invidious or partial, 
I really think that Omaha and Nebraska to-day owe more to my old 
friend and always faithful comrade and supporter, Dr. George L. 
Miller, for the success of these efforts, than any other man. I could 
show you many of the benefits he brought to you, even more than he 
knows himself, and he was the most unselfish and determined con¬ 
tinuous fighter for his city and State that I ever knew, and I take 
pleasure here in his own home in paying my tribute to him. 

Now, gentlemen, this city and State for their great prosperity, 
after the fact, are mostly indebted to the Union Pacific Railway. It 
blazed the way across the continent. They took all the chances and 
solved the problem of the building of a railroad to the Pacific, not 
only from an engineering point of view, but also from a commercial 
one, and it was, therefore, easy after that for all roads to follow. It 
was at that time a very great problem if a road built could ever earn 
its interest. After its completion the board of directors of the com¬ 
pany requested me to make an estimate of the gross earnings per mile 
for the next ten years. They desired an estimate from which they 
could prove to the people that it would be able to pay the interest 


116 




“ The Pioneers And Development Of The West.” 


upon the first mortgage bonds, and after calling to my aid all the 
people who had knowledge of the capabilities of the country west 
of the Missouri River, as well as those of China and Japan, and, in 
fact, of all Asia, the best I could do was to report to them gross earn¬ 
ings within ten years of $5,000 per mile; and if I remember rightly, 
in less than five years the road earned $10,000 per mile. So you see 
how little those who had the best knowledge of this country appre¬ 
ciated what its development would bring about. 

The earnings of the Union Pacific made it safe for any other road 
to enter the territory, and to the Farnams, the Ameses, the Dillons, 
Goulds, Scott, Huntington, and Stanford in an early day, and to 
Perkins, Miller, Cable, Hewitt, and many others of a later day, this 
country should give great honor and no abuse. It has been the fash¬ 
ion in our day to hold up to the coming generation the names of 
Astor, Vanderbilt, and the noted Knickerbockers as the great men, 
commercially, for them to follow. These men invested their money 
in the East, where it was safe and sure of dividends, but the men who 
developed the country and brought in their millions without one cent 
in return, they are the ones you and all others are indebted to for 
their foresight, their risking everjdhing, and finally building up a 
great empire west of the Lakes. Most of those of the earlier day 
have passed away, and this country is now awakening to the credit 
due them, which I hope will some time be paid them. 

When you come down to the present time, I admit that I am not 
up to the times. I never dreamed that the Union Pacific Railroad 
would control the Southern Pacific. My fear was always that the 
ownership would be in the Southern Pacific. You must not sit still 
and pass by what there is for you here in this great control. Your 
business men must get near to the throne, and use your energies like 
Miller and Hitchcock, and Saunders and Millard, and many others 
did in an earlier day, to take the benefits of these new developments. 
Nor need you be afraid of the great combinations just completed in 
the Northwest. It will not raise the rates of freight one mill nor of 
passengers one cent. The men at the head of that gigantic enter¬ 
prise are broad minded. They have thought and built well, and they 
will bring stability, development, and great wealth that can not but 
be of great benefit to you. You must not forget one of the great 
advantages of such combinations to a new country. They have be¬ 
hind them such an immense capital that when you go to them with 
any project that has merit in it for the development of your country, 
they are able to adopt it and carry it out, whilst in an earlier day 
projects were often presented to those who controlled the internal 
improvements of this country which they saw the merits of and were 
anxious to take hold of, but it was impossible for them to obtain the 


117 



How We Built The Union Pacific. 


capital at those times to do it. Nor must you forget what this com¬ 
bination means. The country west of here has hardly been scratched, 
and with the brains and capital of the country pushing forward its 
development with steam and electricity and air, what one here can 
prophesy what fifty years will develop between here and the Pacific 
Ocean ? 

I know there is some nervousness among people about these great 
combinations, but those that are not upon a solid basis will topple 
over from their overweight, and the others will continue and grow 
and bring stability to all kinds of business. The commercial man 
wants to know that he can safely lay down plans for six months or 
a year, and under such direction he can safely do it, and it is a mis¬ 
take to attack them before you are hurt. You will find greater bene¬ 
fits coming to your country by supporting and aiding them rather 
than by abuse and opposition. 

New blood must take the place of old, and T bid you godspeed in 
your efforts. And now, my friends, in our old age the great satisfac¬ 
tion to all of you and to me is to know that our early efforts are both 
recognized and appreciated; that the old friendships acquired in 
trials and tribulations are still fresh and true; and to my old friends, 
and all of you I wish I knew how to express to you what is in my 
heart, but I can not. I can only say, I thank you with all my heart. 


118 






UNION PACIFIC RAILWAY CROSSING, GREEN RIVER, UTAH. 










LETTER TO THE IOWA RAILWAY CLUB, DES MOINES, 
IOWA, MAY 25, 1908. 


Mr. C. W. Jones, 

President Iowa Railway Club , Des Moines , Iowa. 

Dear Sir: It is with deepest regret that I find myself unable 
on account of an illness, not serious, but which makes it impossible 
for me to travel, to be present at the reunion of the old-time railway 
men of Iowa, for it was my good fortune early in 1853 to cross the 
Mississippi River and be one of a party under Mr. Peter A. Dey, 
one of the most distinguished railroad engineers and citizens, that 
made the first survey across the State of Iowa from the Mississippi 
River at Davenport to Council Bluffs on the Missouri River, and to 
take part in the building of that line to Iowa City. I think it was 
the first railroad built in the State of Iowa. I take great pleasure 
and great satisfaction in extending my greetings to my railroad 
comrades of that day. 

It has also been my good fortune to have continued my railroad 
work from that day to this, even including the civil war, for in my 
duties there I had to destroy and rebuild many miles of road, so I 
can claim not only to have been in the beginning, but a veteran in 
the service, and in all these years I have seen the work of you men 
that has developed and brought such prosperity to this country. 

The men of the early day who risked their fortunes and their credit 
to develop this great country are not only entitled to our thanks, 
but monuments should be raised to the work which they accom¬ 
plished, for most of them waited many, many years before they 
received any returns from the vast investments which they made. 
The railroads of this country were most of them built far ahead of 
the population’s demand and were the pioneers in the development 
and settlement of the country. These men have never received the 
credit that is due them, but some day when the history of the rail¬ 
roads of the United States is written the risk they took, the work 
they accomplished, will equal that of any other performance in our or 
any other country. To you who were in the beginning it is not nec¬ 
essary to relate the exposure, hardship, and privations that railroad 
men of our class had to contend with and how different our work 
in those days was compared with what it is under the present modern 


119 



How We Built The Union Pacific. 


conditions. Still I claim we performed our work as efficiently with an 
interest in it and esprit de corps that was equal comparatively with 
the work of our railroad comrades of to-day. 

We have seen the railroads of a few thousand miles of that day 
grow until in the United States we have nearly, if not quite, 240,000 
miles, and in our State we have seen built a network of them that 
I believe covers every county in the State, probably giving our State 
as good, if not better, transportation services than that of any other 
State in our Union, although we are simply an agricultural State and 
it is this fact that has made our State so prominent a factor in all 
matters of national importance, and that has given it such universal 
and individual prosperity. 

The railroad problem of to-day is a far different one from what 
it was in your day. Then the whole aim and effort of the country 
was to obtain the building of railroads. Great bonuses in stock were 
given to capital that would invest in them; it was the only method 
of obtaining the construction of roads; even those that had land 
grants in our day, which now are considered of such great worth, 
added very little in the negotiations of the securities that built the 
road. 

The growth of the country, its business, its population has brought 
about an entirely different state of affairs. Legislation of to-day 
for the police and control of railroads all tends to prevent the build¬ 
ing of new roads and to enhance the value of old ones, so that now 
the transportation of the country is organized in great systems in¬ 
stead of as in an early day where every road was running in its own 
interest and independent of every one of its connections. It is a 
singular fact in this modern legislation that the people best equipped 
for forming it and carrying it out have been very little considered. 
Therefore much of it is impracticable and has been found by the 
courts impossible. That of it which has been put in force has been 
acquiesced in by the railroads and they are working now with the 
Interstate Commerce and state commissions in harmony and en¬ 
deavoring to comply with the laws and decisions, not only in the 
letter but in the spirit, and, as our people get experience in these 
matters, I have no doubt, myself, that the legislation will be made 
practical and of benefit to the roads and to the people. 

Experience shows the people as they investigate this matter that 
the railroad problem is a very hard one to solve and that it takes long 
experience to frame laws that will accomplish the objects they have 
in view. One of the most mistaken ideas that our country has in 
relation to the railroads of this country is the statement often made 
by officials and through the press that the railroads of this country 
are overcapitalized, that their stock is mostly water. People forget 

120 



Letter To The Ioiva Railway Club. 


that since the roads were first built that out of their earnings millions 
upon millions of dollars have gone in for their improvement and bet¬ 
terment, for building up their great commercial business, and that 
their value has increased with that of other products and industries 
of our country. They forget that the life of the railroad now is only 
about twelve years and that it has to be rebuilt, so that during our 
time most of the roads of the United States have been rebuilt three 
times and the rebuilding of them has one-half of it come out of its 
earnings and all this has been added to its capital without the issue 
of bonds or stock. 

When you go back to our day and remember that our rails were 
iron and only about 40 or 50 pounds to the yard in weight, our cars 
were of 20 tons, our locomotives of 30 tons, and that now our rails are 
steel and run from 75 to 105 pounds to the yard, our cars from 40 to 
GO tons, our locomotives GO to 100 tons on the drivers, and that most 
of our roads in their bridges, in their shops, and all of its improve¬ 
ments have had to be reconstructed in the same way and are only 
to-day being made permanent; when you consider that in an early 
day the question of terminals was never a factor, while to-day the 
terminals of some roads passing through some cities cost more than 
the road itself; when you see such roads as the Pennsylvania spending 
$100,000,000 to get its passenger trains only into New York City, and 
the New York Central spending an equal amount to enlarge its pas¬ 
senger facilities in New York; when you see such great systems in 
the West as the Union Pacific and the Southern Pacific having spent 
in the last five years over $200,000,000 to reduce their curvatures and 
grades, and see the immense sums that have to be spent all over the 
United States to develop the capacity of the properties, you can then 
begin to comprehend the fact, which statisticians who have examined 
the question thoroughly say, that the railroads of the United States 
to-day are not overcapitalized. In other words, there has been more 
actual money put into them than their stock and the bonds represent. 
This has been attested to by the President of the United States, who 
probably has given it closer attention than anyone else outside of the 
railroads, and by the Interstate Commerce Commission, who have 
also given it great study, and they have both given the opinion that 
the roads to-day of the United States are not overcapitalized, and 
that fact is becoming patent to the people of the United States, for 
the great increase in stockholders in the roads of the United States 
to-day shows that instead of these properties being in the hands of a 
few wealthy men, as is often asserted, they are owned most in this 
country by a vast number of stockholders, which is increasing daily. 

It is the duty of us who have been long connected with the roads, 
or who were connected with them in an early day, to do what we can 


121 



Hotu We Built The Union Pacific. 


to educate the people of the United States as to the real facts in con¬ 
nection with railroading. In my opinion where the railroad people 
have been lacking in their duties is in not educating the people as the 
years went by, and setting forth more clearly to them the railroad 
interests and their intentions. The fact is that every railroad man 
has been so busy looking after the proper administration of his prop¬ 
erty that he has very seldom or ever gone into a defense or explana¬ 
tion of his work. As a proof of this, I have been a railroad man 
continuously since I was 19 years old and this is the first letter that I 
have ever written that in any way went to a defense of the railroads 
of the country. I have been in favor from the beginning, with a 
great many other railroad men of the country who were among the 
first to bring the necessity to the Government’s attention, of proper 
legislation for bringing about uniformity, in all service, reasonable 
and fixed rates without rebates, with proper control of the railroads 
of the United States. The necessity for this has only come in the 
last few years, and it is recognized now almost universally by railroad 
men, and your association can do a great deal to continue it in a 
sensible and profitable way, and I trust at this meeting a permanent 
organization of the railroad men will be formed for this State. 

Every one of you should be proud of the fact that you have been a 
part of and did your duty in the great railroad field that numbers 
many of our ablest men and officials of our country, that you have 
been a part of that great system which employs over 1,500,000 of our 
population, and as one of you, the highest compliment that can be 
paid me when I am gone is that I was over fifty years one of the 
railroad fraternity of the United States and did my duty to the best 
of my ability. 

It is a great disappointment to me that I can not be present with 
you, to first grasp by the hand my old chief, Peter A. Dey, whom I 
hold to be one of the ablest of the railroad men of our country, one 
of the squarest, fairest, and most just of all the men I ever met, and 
the two Houses, J. E. and George, who were in our little party that 
crossed the Mississippi River in 1853. 


122 











GENERAL DODGE’S CAMP, BLACKFOOT CREEK, UTAH, 1867. 










DESCRIPTION OF NORWICH UNIVERSITY 

Given at the Annual Banquet, April 3, 1893. 


We have with us this evening, besides those directly connected with 
Norwich University, representatives of West Point, Y"ale, Harvard, 
Dartmouth, Hamilton, and the University of Vermont, as well as a 
delegation from the Brooklyn Society of Vermonters. Many of them 
probably do not know much about Norwich University, and for their 
information I have compiled from the records a short statement 
which I will read. 

Norwich University was founded by Capt. Alden Partridge in 
1819. Captain Partridge had been the commandant of West Point 
and left there to found a literary, scientific, and military academy at 
Norwich, Vt., and there started the first scientific, classical, and mili¬ 
tary college in the United States. It was the first institution to lay 
down a thoroughly scientific course of study, and up to the time of 
the rebellion it was the only one which embraced a thorough military, 
classical, and scientific course. Its second commander was Col. Tru¬ 
man B. Ransom, who left to take command of the Ninth New England 
Regiment in the war with Mexico, and who was killed while leading 
his regiment in the assault upon Chapultepec, Mexico, his last words 
being, “ Forward, the Ninth! ” The university has never had one 
cent of endowment. It has been always poor, struggling for existence, 
and its cadets were mostly poor boys, working their way through 
college by their own efforts. In the war of the rebellion its record, 
according to its numbers, is far beyond any civil institution of learn¬ 
ing in the country. In 18G4 its roster, as partially completed, showed 
then in the service, 12 generals, 25 colonels, 40 field officers, 50 cap¬ 
tains, 142 lieutenants on the Union side. There were a great many 
on the Confederate side, but no roster of them has ever been made. 

Its roll of honor includes Harney, Buell, T. E. G. Ransom, Terry, 
Seymour, Strong, Milroy, Louden, Seth Williams, Wright, Baxter of 
the Medical Department, Dewey, Abbott, Converse, Colvocoresses 
and others of the navy, and many other equally good soldiers and 
sailors. 

General Grant often paid high tribute to Norwich University, and 
in his promotion and commendation of its cadets gave them the 


123 



How We Built The Union Pacific 


highest command and great honor, placing one of them, a brigadier- 
general, at the head of a corps, where he remained until he was pro¬ 
moted to major-general, while major-generals in the same army were 
commanding divisions. 

General Sherman never failed, when Norwich University was 
spoken of, to commend it, and he paid it the highest honors by giving 
to two of its graduates (I think then the youngest two generals of 
their rank in his army) the command of corps, one of whom, Ransom 
(son of Col. Truman B. Ransom, who was killed at the assault upon 
Chapultepec), died while leading the Seventeenth Army Corps in 
the chase after Hood. 

In speaking of this institution publicly at one time, while paying 
tribute to one of its cadets, General Sherman spoke as follows: 

Norwich University, then, as since, a college of great renown. This military 
school at one time almost rivaled the National Military Academy at West Point, 
and there many a man who afterwards became famous in the Mexican war and 
civil war first drank in the inspiration of patriotism and learned the lessons of 
the art of war, which enabled him, out of unorganized masses of men, to make 
compact companies, regiments, and brigades of soldiers, to act as a single body 
in the great game of war. I have been at Norwich, which is situated on the 
western bank of the beautiful Connecticut River, directly opposite the venerable 
University of Dartmouth, and believe that such picturesque surroundings make 
an impression on the mind which purifies and imbues it with an exalted love 
of nature and one’s country. 

Since that time Norwich University has removed to Northfield, Yt. 

Norwich University is to-day more prosperous than ever before. 
The State of Vermont has given it official recognition, and I believe 
that each state senator of their legislature is entitled to appoint one 
cadet to the university, and that the State pays for his tuition. 

There are a few of us who meet here now yearly to keep alive the 
spirit and principles of the college, holding closely to its military de¬ 
partment. It has stood first in work of all the military colleges of 
our country and ranks next to West Point in the graduates it turns 
out and in the service given in the civil war. 


124 


















K*yx- 




■ 


W»m 


BEAR RIVER BRIDGE, UTAH. 











NORWICH UNIVERSITY IN THE CIVIL WAR. 

Given at the Annual Banquet in New York in 1902. 


I take great pleasure in welcoming you to the banquet of the New 
York Association of Norwich University. The distinguishing fea¬ 
ture of this university is that nine-tenths of its students are depend¬ 
ent upon their own efforts, not only for their education, but their 
future in the world, and there is no doubt that from this fact so 
many of its cadets have been successful in all the walks of life. It 
is a military college. Its first president was the first commandant of 
West Point, and from its organization until to-day it has stood first 
in the records of the War Department as compared with other insti¬ 
tutions of a similar character, and second only to West Point. 

In the Mexican war its president, Truman R. Ransom, and most of 
the cadets entered the service of the United States. Ransom was 
colonel of the New England regiment, and fell in the assault upon 
Chapultepec. 

In the civil war 90 per cent of its living cadets entered the service, 
mostly as officers, on one side or the other, and, as the history of the 
university shows, many of them rose to the highest rank and highest 
commands in the service. The university received the commenda¬ 
tions of Generals Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas, and others, 
and Norwich University cadets were always selected next to those 
from West Point, for important and difficult demands. There are 
present here to-night those who were cadets during the civil war 
whose whole class enlisted. In fact, the whole university turned out, 
suspending the functions of the institution for two years. 

In the Spanish war it is said that 85 per cent of its living cadets 
volunteered for service, and were distinguished on many fields. 
Many of them are still in the service. It was equally as well rep¬ 
resented in our navy in both wars. It was one of its cadets that 
struck the first effective blow in the Spanish war, and another cadet, 
Commander Colvocoresses, who commanded one of the vessels, after 
the naval battle at Manila, went alongside the Olympia to pay his 
respects and congratulate Admiral Dewey upon his great victory. 
Admiral Dewey, who saw Colvocoresses as he came alongside in his 
launch, leaned over the rail and said, “ Colv., old N. U. is ahead yet,” 


125 



How We Built The Union Pacific. 


showing no matter what his after life or education had been he gave 
the credit for his success to his alma mater. 

In civil life its cadets have greatly distinguished themselves as 
engineers, and in other professional lines. Probably I can say that 
there is no one who has had as many of the cadets of Norwich Uni¬ 
versity under him as I have, both in the civil war, and later in the 
internal improvements of the country, and to my knowledge there 
has been no failure among them. They have universally taken their 
places and held them until they went to higher positions. The uni¬ 
versity to-day is the military college of the State of Vermont, which 
assigns to it a representative cadet for each senatorial district. 

I believe myself there is no education so beneficial to a young man 
as that which gives discipline, respect for power, and obedience to 
orders, and the drill and exercise add to the health of the student, so 
when he steps out into the world to fight his way he is better equipped 
than those who have gone through college without this physical and 
mental training. 

I am happy to say that the university has never been so prosperous 
as it is to-day. The interest in it is growing, and it is a great satis¬ 
faction to the old cadets to see and feel the high esteem in which it is 
held throughout the country. In comparison with other colleges few 
in numbers, but in acts and all things that go to make and defend a 
great country we stand the peer of the best institutions of learning 
our country has produced. 

It is a great pleasure for me to welcome the large attendance at 
this, our annual banquet, and to congratulate you upon the prosperity 
of old N. U., and also upon the presence of so many distinguished 
officers of the army, which indicates better than anything else the 
interest taken in the growth of the military colleges of the country 
by the War Department and Regular Army, and the appreciation of 
their usefulness in tlie building up of a great national reserve, such as 
other countries have, that can be placed in the field ready for service 
in a short time. Secretary Root was the first to fully recognize the 
advantage to the army of utilizing their work, and since his time 
Major-General Bell has carried out and developed his plans, and a 
late order of his has gone forth in advance of Secretary Root, as it 
places our honor graduates in the army without mental examination. 

I saw not long ago a criticism from some officers of the General 
Staff that graduates of military colleges did not show a disposition 
to enter the army in times of war, and citing the Spanish war as an 
example, there being but few officers in the volunteers coming from 
the military colleges and schools. I think their conclusion does not 
show a very deep study of the organization of our volunteer force in 
the Spanish war, or such a statement would not have been made. 

126 



Norwich University In The Civil War. 


There is present here to-night a former distinguished officer of the 
Regular Army who had charge of the organization of the volunteer 
force in the Spanish war who can bear me out in the statement that 
the policy adopted by the Government at the instigation of the 
governors of the different States was to place in the service intact the 
national guard of these States, and the volunteer forces of the war 
were organized on that plan. As I recollect, the regiments mustered 
into the service took about 90 per cent of their officers and only 40 
per cent of their enlisted men. When it came to the enlistments for 
the Philippines, the War Department took that directly under its 
own charge, and selected the officers of the regiments, and naturally 
and justly gave preference to officers and enlisted men who had 
shown fitness and ability in the service in Cuba, and selected them as 
officers in these Philippine regiments. This almost excluded officers 
outside of the national guard on account of the limited number 
organized and mustered in. I think it would have been much fairer 
to the military colleges to have gone back to the methods of the 
civil war where nearly all enlistments were voluntary, and officered 
by the governor of each State. At that time there was in the North 
but one military college that I know of, and that was Norwich 
University. In the South there were several. One that I know of 
was in northern Alabama, in the Tennessee Valley. I saw it burned 
down by my troops in the campaign up the Tennessee to the rear 
of Bragg for the purpose of destroying the stores accumulated by 
him along the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. A company of 
the Seventh Kansas Cavalry struck the military institute, and con¬ 
sidering that it came within my orders for the destruction of material 
and supplies that could be used by the enemy, burned it and reported 
it officially to me. As I said, I saw it burn, and regretted it, as it 
was contrary to my orders. However, since the war I have tried to 
aid its trustees in establishing their claim for payment by the Govern¬ 
ment on account of its destruction. There was another military 
institution in Virginia, and I think in one or two other Southern 
States, though I am not certain. But take the record of Norwich 
University, with which we are acquainted. The president had just 
compiled from our records a roster of its cadets who served in the 
Mexican and civil war, and here it is; I will read it: 

Major-generals_ 

Brevet major-generals— 

Other general officers- 

Brevet brigadier-generals 

Colonels- 

Lieutenant-colonels_ 

Majors --- 


8 

2 

11 

18 

43 

29 

37 


127 











How We Built The Union Pacific. 


Captains___144 

First lieutenants_ 72 

Second lieutenants_ 42 

Surgeons_ 23 

Foreign service_ 63 

Privates_ 60 

Admirals_ 1 

Rear admirals_ 5 

Commodores_ 7 

Captains_ 5 

Commanders.!_ 3 

Lieutenants_ 11 

Ensigns_ 1 

Engineers_ 3 

Midshipmen_ 14 

Chaplains_ 1 

Drill masters—rank not known_ 3 

Warrant officers and miscellaneous_ 8 

Commissioned officers with war service_485 

Total with war service_584 

Total with militia service only_143 

All with military or naval service_717 


The enrollment at Norwich University for the thirty years from 
1835 to 1864 was 956, and 427 of these served in the civil war as 
officers, or 46 per cent of the total enrollment. Of course, many of 
those enrolled during the thirty years had died, so the percentage 
should really be much larger. 

The enrollment at the Virginia Military Institute for same period 
was 1,430. Nine hundred and eight-six of its cadets served in the 
civil war, of which 563 were commissioned officers, or 68 per cent. I 
have no doubt in case of war and the opportunity was offered, the 
military colleges would furnish as large a percentage as they did in 
the civil war. 

The attendance at Norwich University up to the time of the civil 
was w T as seldom more than 50, and I think it is fair to state that 
no institution of learning ever turned out such a proportion of its 
students to serve its country, and none other can show the distinction 
they attained in the service. Although I do not state it as a fact, I 
believe it compares favorably with West Point. If you go into civil 
life, into the scientific professions, you will find that the graduates 
of the military colleges, in proportion to their numbers, hold the 
most important positions and have accomplished the most important 
work. If you go into the development of the country and its internal 
improvements you will find these graduates very prominent. In the 
civil war General Grant and General Sherman paid their tribute to 
them, not only in words but in deeds. When it came to the selection 
of officers for important commands, especially independent corn- 

128 


























Norwich University In The Civil War. 


mands, they took first the graduates of West Point, next the gradu¬ 
ates of these colleges. No matter what you read or hear, in the army 
and navy, as in all professions and industries, the educated soldier 
must come to the front first. The rest have to learn from years of 
experience what they know from the beginning, and for that reason 
in building up a great national reserve for our country (which we 
are bound to have) each year our military schools will become a great 
and prominent factor, and will be more and more utilized by the 
Government. 

I am opposed to war, and will go as far as any man to prevent it, 
but am a firm believer that peace can only be preserved by having an 
army and navy, and a reserve that can be put into the field ready to 
meet any force it is possible for any country to bring against us. 
This will insure peace, and I hope ere long a permanent agreement 
will be made by all nations to arbitrate and carry out the plans of 
our Government which were so forcibly and ably presented at The 
Hague conference. 

As to the standing of these military colleges, I call your attention 
to the reports of inspection made by the War Department in 1903 on 
Norwich University. They are too long to read, but nearly all the 
questions asked by the War Department and General Staff are an¬ 
swered favorably, and the final statement for 1907 is as follows: 

The general excellent condition of the military department of this university 
reported last year has been maintained. The work here is very satisfactory, 
and the college authorities deserve all possible encouragement and assistance 
from the War Department in their efforts to maintain their high military 
standing. Lieutenant Chapman’s selection for this duty was a very fortunate 
one. 

Michael J. Lenihan, 
Captain Genet'al Staff, Inspector. 

It is a singular fact that the charitable people w T ho give large sums 
for the maintenance and endowment of colleges and schools of the 
country, seldom, if ever, give to the military college, so that young 
boys who enter these schools go there from an instinct or love of the 
military feature of them, and are therefore of necessity bound to 
make good soldiers and good officers. Most of those who go to these 
colleges have to work their way through, and seek employment on 
their merits alone, and are taught lessons they never forget. I have 
in view an object lesson of this kind which occurred on one of our 
roads during this last fall. Our trainmen struck at noon one day 
without any warning to us, and left their trains standing. When 
our employees learned this, under the lead of a graduate of Norwich 
University who is an employee of the road, they volunteered to man 
the trains and run them for us. I think we were not obliged to bring 

S. Doc. 447, 61-2—10-9 129 



How We Built The Union Pacific . 


in any additional men, and in about two weeks the strikers, seeing 
the spirit and esprit de corps in the employees of the company, 
returned to their work without obtaining any of the demands they 
had made. It is the education received in these colleges that brings 
about an interest in their employer’s work. Its graduates are fitted 
for any position in life. First, because of the training which gives 
them strength and health, and second, because daily they are taught 
honesty and industry, respect to authority, loyalty to the Govern¬ 
ment, and finally absolute obedience to orders. 


130 











COTTONWOOD GROVE, WEBER CANYON, UTAH. 




ADDRESS ON NORWICH UNIVERSITY, 1903. 

Before the Vermont Society of New York. 


For your kindly greeting, and the honor you have conferred upon 
me by electing me an honorary member of your society, you have my 
grateful thanks. 

When a young boy I spent four years among the green hills, beau¬ 
tiful valleys, and sweet, honest, hearty homes of Vermont. I thought 
then they were years of hard toil, of vexations, and of submission to 
older boys who wore brass buttons and sat down upon me severely, 
and I longed to see them over; but from that day to this they were 
my happiest hours, free from care and responsibility, and for the 
benefit I received and the lessons they taught me, for the dicipline 
in mind, thought, and action, and the respect to authority that was 
drilled into me, I am here to-night not only to thank the State of 
Vermont, but to say a few words for the institution that sent me 
forth so well equipped to meet the world. 

The Green Mountain Boys have not only always faced the enemy, 
but have made a record on the battlefield second to no other State. 
Vermont’s killed and wounded in battle, the success of her troops, and 
the ability with which they were commanded in each engagement is 
known to you all. She stands, if I remember rightly, second on the 
roster, not only in killed and wounded in a regiment, but in the 
largest percentage of the killed and wounded, according to the num¬ 
ber of troops furnished by each State. 

Among the leading officers of the army the question has often been 
discussed why this was so. I think it was that her troops were so 
well commanded. This came from the fact that for forty-two years 
before the war of the rebellion she had a standing object lesson in 
the necessity and benefits of a military education before her youth in 
Norwich University. 

The history of that university and its record in war and peace will 
demonstrate to you one of the principal reasons that has placed our 
little State of Vermont so high on the roll of honor of this nation, 
and when I recite it to you I know it will receive at your hands the 
credit due to it from the sons of Vermont. 


131 



How We Built The Union Pacific . 




Capt. Alden Partridge, the commandant of West Point, left there 
in 1819, to found a literary, scientific, and military academy at Nor¬ 
wich, Vt., and there started the first private scientific, classical, and 
military college in the United States. 

It was incorporated as Norwich University in 1834, and was 
modeled after West Point. It was the first institution to lay down 
a thoroughly scientific course of study, and, up to the time of the 
rebellion, it was the only one which embraced a thoroughly military, 
classical, and scientific course. 

From the time of its foundation until to-day, in its military and 
scientific features, it has stood second to our national academy* It 
is by its charter nonsectarian. The discipline, distinction, and duties 
of an officer and a soldier are maintained throughout its course. 

The university is maintained on less than $5,000 a year. It has 
never had one cent endowment. It has always been poor, struggling 
for existence, and its cadets were mostly poor boys working their way 
through college by their own efforts. The expense of a cadet, includ¬ 
ing everything, is not necessarily over $200 a year, and of cadets ap¬ 
pointed by the State, not over $150; this alone teaches economy, 
industry, and self-reliance. 

The cadets wear a uniform patterned after West Point, thus avoid¬ 
ing extravagance in dress. Their military duties and studies take 
every hour in the day from 6 a. m. to 9 p. m., preventing idleness and 
negligence. The drill and exercise make hearty, healthy men, who 
often march 30 to 40 .miles per day carrying the equipment of a 
soldier. 

In the war of the rebellion its record is far beyond any civil insti¬ 
tution of learning in the country. In 1864 its roster, as partially 
completed, showed then in the service 12 generals, 25 colonels. 40 field 
officers, 55 captains, 142 lieutenants, and many noncommissioned 
officers and privates on the Union side. 

There were a great many on the Confederate side, but no roster of 
them has ever been made. During the war of the rebellion the under¬ 
graduates enlisted so fast that for two years there was no commence¬ 
ment at the university. The second commander of the university 
was Col. Truman B. Ransom, who resigned to take command of the 
Ninth New England Regiment in the war with Mexico, and who was 
killed while leading his regiment in the assault upon Chapultepec, 
Mexico, his last words being, “ Forward, the Ninth! ” 

The roll of honor includes Harney Buel, the three Ransoms, Sey¬ 
mour, Strong, Milroy, Louden, Seth Williams, Bryant, Wright, 
Baxter of the medical department, Abbott, Converse and others of 
the navy, and many other equalty good soldiers and sailors. 


132 





Address On Norwich University, 1903 . 


General Grant often paid high tribute to Norwich University, and 
in his promotion and commendation of its cadets, gave them the 
highest command and great honor, placing one of them, a brigadier- 
general, at the head of a corps, where he remained until he was 
promoted to major-general, while major-generals in the same army 
were commanding divisions. 

General Sherman never failed, when Norwich University was 
spoken of, to commend it, and he paid it the highest honors by giving 
two of its graduates (I think then the two youngest generals of their 
rank in the army) the command of corps, one of whom, Ransom (son 
of Truman B. Ransom, who was killed at the assault upon Chapulte- 
pec), died while leading the Seventh Army Corps in the chase after 
Hood. 

In speaking of this institution publicly at one time, while paying a 
tribute to one of its cadets, General Sherman spoke as follows: 

Norwich University, then as since, a college of great renown. This military 
school at one time almost rivaled the National Military Academy at West Point, 
and there many a man who afterwards became famous in the Mexican war and 
civil war first drank in the inspiration of patriotism and learned the lesson of 
the art of war, which enabled him, out of unorganized masses of men, to make 
• compact companies, regiments, and brigades of soldiers to act as a single body 
in the great game of war. 

I have been at Norwich, which is situated on the western bank of the beauti¬ 
ful Connecticut River, directly opposite the venerable University of Dartmouth, 
and believe that such picturesque surroundings make an impression on the mind 
which purifies and imbues it with an exalted love of nature and one’s country. 

Next to its military renown, its cadets have won great distinction 
as leaders in the development of this continent ; they explored for our 
great railways not only in our own country, but in others, especially 
in South America; they connected the Atlantic with the Pacific with 
that great continental system first built, which has added so much 
to our civilization, wealth, and progress. Their aid and advice have 
been sought in most of the great works of Europe and China; as civil 
and mining engineers they have gone over, through and deep down 
in all of our great mountain ranges—the Andes and the Alps. One 
of its cadets, Professor Jackman, whose mathematical mind has won 
him great renown, in 1846 conceived and published the plan of an 
ocean magnetic telegraph cable, remarkably like that laid in 1858. 
It is believed by many that Cyrus W. Field received his first idea of 
the ocean cable from Professor Jackman’s publications. 

In 1884 the State of Vermont enacted a law, giving each state 
senator the right to appoint a cadet from his district to Norwich 
University, and appropriated $50 per year for his tuition and room 
rent. 


133 




IIow We Built The Union Pacific. 


This state recognition made it a state military university; added 
greatly to its standing and the “ esprit de corps ” of its cadets. 

Col. R. P. Hughes, Inspector-General of the United States Army, 
in his official report to the Secretary of War, sa} T s: 

The military department has been a marked feature of this institution ever 
since its establishment in 1S19 by Capt. Alden Partridge, of the Corps of 
Engineers; the military system has been carried into the entire duty of this 
college, and the company officers have charge of their subordinates in the dor¬ 
mitories as well as on the parade ground. The officers who are members of 
the senior class have a control and influence over the lower classes that make 
itself felt in the management of the establishment. 

The military department can have no higher encomium than that supplied 
by its own record in the war. I know of no other institution in our country 
that can present such a striking and practical example of the spirit of loyalty 
and patriotism instilled into its students. This institution is sending out each 
jear a class of men who are well fitted, both practically and theoretically, to 
assume command of battalions should any necessity arise for such services. 
Although the numbers are small, it is due the institution to say that in its 
military system, discipline, and instruction it stands at the head of all the 
colleges in this inspection. 

Lieutenant Kimball, the officer detailed by the Secretary of War 
for duty at the university, and its commandant, in his report for 1893, 
says: 

The year's work included a thorough course of drills in all arms of the serv¬ 
ice. The cadets were in camp during June, with three drills a day. During 
this time only one cadet was under arrest. Fifty-five recitations in military 
duty and science were had. The cadets lived according to the customs of our 
military services, and it established between their officers and privates habits 
of respect and official courtesy which they carry into their future lives. 

The successfully maintaining of such institutions grows more diffi¬ 
cult each year. The natural tendency of young men, especially those 
with ample means, is to the larger colleges, but if they would stop and 
think a moment, or could have the experience of graduates in after 
life, thev would learn that for their own benefit smaller colleges, 
more remote from large cities, from their temptations, are the best. 
In large colleges the student’s identity is absolutely lost. They 
spend four years without individuality, and generally without ambi¬ 
tion, but in smaller institutions of learning they are measured, tested 
individually; competition gives them favorable recognition by the 
faculty; lifts the student to a higher plane and greater efforts, and 
when he graduates he carries with him a personal acquaintance with 
the entire corps—his record, individually, and success come to him 
every year in his life. 

Last June T attended the commencement of Norwich University, at 
Northfield, Vt. The governor and his staff, in uniform, were present, 
the governor delivering to each cadet his diploma, and speaking 


134 






Address On Norwich University, 1903. 


appropriate words before an immense audience, making it a state 
occasion. It brought together delegates from different colleges, the 
army officers stationed in and near Vermont, and distinguished guests. 
They listened to the graduating class, witnessed the drills in all the 
arms of the service, and it was the unanimous decision of all that the 
soldierly bearing and discipline, the respect shown to rank and author¬ 
ity, and the scholarly attainments of the cadets were a great credit 
to the university and a great honor to the State. 

I had not visited the university since I bid it good-by in 1851. I 
saw much to give me encouragement, notwithstanding the great diffi¬ 
culty under which it labors by having to earn by day labor every 
dollar it spends each year. It is more prosperous now than ever. In 
ten years it has quadrupled its attendance, has built a new hall, 
added materially to its scientific and engineering appliances, has 
paid off its mortgages, and is free from debt. Has as commandant 
an officer detailed by the United States, who takes great interest in 
its success. It needs badly a new drill hall, gymnasium, and steam 
heating for all its buildings, large additions to its electrical and engi¬ 
neering department, and more instructors. Those there now are 
overworked. They hardly have a moment leisure from early morning 
until late at night. In fact, after their duties with the cadets are 
over they have to attend to the correspondence and business of the 
university. 

To obtain all this on a permanent basis the university must have 
a permanent income. From endowment, scholarships, in fact, from 
every source that our colleges are helped, Norwich University stands 
alone of all the colleges in Vermont without endowment. Vermont 
has been fortunate lately in the large sums donated to its institutions 
of learning, which is rapidly building them up, and I appeal here 
to-night to the sons of Vermont, as you have made me one of you, to 
place Norwich University in a position in the State financially that 
it holds in the nation intellectually. 

The record the university -has made for her State on the battlefield, 
in the inaugurating, building, and managing the great enterprise of 
the country entitles her to your serious consideration. 

If you want to do honor to your State, and credit to yourself for 
all time, let me say to you, it is best done by aiding old Norwich 
University. It is no disparagement to others to state that it has 
a wider reputation than any of the institutions of learning in Ver¬ 
mont on account of its military and scientific record, and the Sons of 
Vermont may rest assured that every dollar planted to its benefit 
now or in the future will be heard from more effectually hereafter 
than in the past, for there will be as great fields for her cadets in war, 
science, and industries, national and international developments as 

135 



How We Built The Union Pacific. 


has occurred in the past, and what Vermonter or his descendant will 
not be proud of the fact that it' was his aid that enabled its cadets 
to so distinguish themselves, that as honored a name, and as great 
a commander as Grant, and as great a general, strategist, and engi¬ 
neer as Sherman, gave great honor, and upheld and applauded before 
the world the deeds of the cadets of Norwich University, and gave 
the credit for them to the education and training they received at 
Norwich University? 












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